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^t^-m-,^ t^yCWiuti. _ Lu. 



LETTERS 



OF 



Mrs. ADAMS, 



THE WIFE OF JOHN ADAMS 



WITH AN 



INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 



BY HER GRANDSON, 



CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS. 



FOURTH EDITION, 
REVISED AND ENLARGED, WITH AN APPENDIX CONTAINING 

THE LETTERS ADDRESSED BY JOHN Q. ADAMS TO HIS SON 
ON THE STUDY OF THE BIBLE. 



BOSTON: 

WILKINS, CARTER, AND COMPANY, 

MDCCCXLVIII. >sA;-<* „ 

\ 




0. 









/ ■ /o / 



PREFACE 

TO THE FOURTH EDITION. 



/d5 



The preceding editions of these Letters have been 
long since exliausted. And the late decease of the 
writer's son, to whom several of the most interesting of 
them were addressed, having renewed the inquiry for 
the work, the Editor ventures once more respectfully to 
present it to the public. He has seized the opportunity 
carefully to revise the collection, to omit one or two of the 
least important letters and to add a large number which, 
since the date of the last publication, have been most 
kindly furnished by the descendants of the individuals 
to whom they were addressed. He has also brought 
them into a form more compact and convenient for 
general use than they have had heretofore. 

An Appendix is also added in which the Editor has 
inserted eleven Letters upon the study of the Bible, 
written in 1811 by John Qmncy Adams in Russia, to 
his eldest son, then a boy left in America. As these 
Letters have no necessary connection with the body of 
this work, it may perhaps be proper to explain the 
reasons why they have been joined to it. The fact 
that many copies of them, hastily taken, and there- 



IV PREFACE. 

fore likely to abound in errors, exist in manuscript, has 
been well known to the Editor for some time past, as 
it also was known to the Author himself long before his 
death. So long as no publication of them in print was 
allowed to take place bj persons into whose hands 
such copies fell, the dissemination of defects was not 
likely to be such as to make correction necessary. 
Up to a late moment Mr. Adams entertained an intention 
of printing them himself, mth additions elucidating liis 
latest views upon the interesting subject. But this 
shared the fate of many similar literary projects cut off 
by his active hfe. Scarcely had he left the scene before 
the restraint, up to that moment preserved, was broken, 
and an unauthorized publication of the Letters, filled with 
errors and imperfections, took place in one newspaper of 
the city of New York, from which they have been trans- 
ferred into other papers far and wide over the Union. 
It seems therefore necessary for his family to seize the 
earhest opportunity to reclaim them and place them in 
the most correct form of which they are now suscept- 
ible. It is however mainly in anticipation of a larger 
work which the Editor meditates submitting at some 
future day to the public, that he is compelled to resort 
to this immediate method of protecting them. 

QuiNCY, May, 1848. 



CONTENTS. 



N. B. Those Letters not before published are marked with an asterisk. 



Page 
Memoik ^^" 

1761. 
To Mi-s. H. Lincoln. 5 October. Accepts the ofier to correspond 
with her. Views of life 3 

1764. 
To John Adanis. 19 -20 April. Wishes to know her faults. Dreams 6 

1767. 
To the same. 14 September. Family well. At her father's ... 8 

1773. 
*To Mrs. Warren. 5-11 December. Has been ill. Gloomy state of 
the country. Arrival of the tea. Remarks upon Mohere's plays . 9 

1774. 

To John Adams. 19 August. Time tedious in his absence. Anxiety 

for the future. Reading Rollin H 

To the same. 2 September. Popular excitement. Seizure of the 

warrants for sunmioning jiiries. Drought 13 

To the same. 14 - 16 September. Warlike preparations of Governor 
Gage. The gunpowder in Braintree^ secured by the people. They 
force the Sherift" to surrender warrants and burn them. Dismay of 
the Tories. At Colonel Quincy's. Students at law in her house. 
Mr. Thaxter teaches her son. Morals of childi-en. Popular feelmg ^ 

in Taumon 1*^ 

To the same. 22 September. Visit to Boston. State of the town. 

Negro conspiracy 19 

To the same. 16 October. Desires his return. Fears for the future. 
Necessity of economy. General Gage. Departm-e of Josiah 
Qumcy, Jr. for England 20 

1775. 

To the same. 4 May. Aifaks at home. Hutcliinson's letters. Mr. 
Quincy's death . ^3 

To the same. 7 May. Cheernig news from North Carohna. Dis- 
tress of Boston ^ 



VI CONTENTS. 

Page 



V. 



To the same. 24 May. Alarm in Braintree. British foraging party 
Arrival of Dr. Franldin from Em-ope. Fire in Boston. State of 
her house 26 

To the same. 15 June. Arrival of British recruits. Apprehensions. 

Mr. Bowdoin. Importance of soldiers. Scarcity of pins . . . . 2S 

To the same. 18-20 June. Action on Bunker's Hill. Death of 
Dr. Warren 31 

To the same. 22 June. Answers inquiries. Dr. Tufts. Prepar- 
ations for removal 33 

To the same. 25 June. Particulars of the action on Bunker's Hill. 
Divine service. Preacher not ardent enough. Condition of Bos- 
ton. Effect of reports 34 

To the same. 5 July. Pleasure of telling news. State of Boston. 

Not afraid. Scarcity of grain 37 

To the same. 16 July. Appointment of Washington and Lee satis- 
factory. First impressions upon seeing them. State of Boston. 
British attacked upon Long Island. Braintree elects a represen- 
tative. Scarcity of foreign goods 39 

To the same. 25 July. Boston lighthouse burnt by a party of Amer- 
icans. Restrictions on the inhabitants of Boston. Generals Bur- 
goyne and Clinton. Visit to Dedham 45 

To the same. 31 July -2 August. Inveighs against |Britain. Treat- 
ment of Dr. Warren's remains. British carpenters attacked at tlae 
lighthouse. Four prisoners with whom she converses 49 

To the same. 1 October. Death of her mother. In great distress. 

Prevalence of disease 52 

To the same. 21 October. Sickness abated. State of Boston. Dr. 
Church. Her fatiicr's grief Complains of her long separation 
from her husband. Want of needles and cloth 53 

To the same. 22 October. Describes her mother's death. Effect 
upon herself British demand upon Falmouth. Tory satires in 
Boston 56 

To the same. 5 November. Dines in company with Dr. Frankhn. 

Reflections upon Dr. Church. Hopes for her hu.sband's return . . 59 

To the same. 12 November. Renounces attaclmient to Britam. 

Skirmish at Lechmere's Point. Her own melancholy 60 

To the same. 27 November. Regrets his prolonged stay. Reflec- 
tions upon government 62 

To the same. 10 December. Visits the American camp. Generals 
Lee and Sullivan. Suggests measm-es. Scarcity of foreign goods. 
Congress too tunid 64 

1776 

To the same. 2-10 March. Ridiculous rumor. Desires independ- 
ence to be declared. Roar of cannon from Dorchester Heights. 
Disappomtment at the result. Movements in Congress 67 

To the same. 7-11 April. British troops removed. Funeral of Dr. 
Warren. Engaged m farming. Capture ot" a British vessel. 
News 71 

To the same. 7-9 May. Neglect of preparations for defence. Ne- 
cessity for govermnent. More captures 74 

To the same. 17 June. At Plymouth. Goes on board the brig De- 



CONTENTS. Vll 

Page. 
fence. Acooimt of the capture of two transports. Confidence in 
the future 77 

*To Mrs. James Warren. Congratulates her on the appointment of 
her husband as a judg-c. Urges his acceptance of the phice ... 80 

To John Adams. 29 September. Anxious for news. High prices 
paid for drafted men. Great number in the pubhc service, and in 
privateers. Wilhng to reap tlie harvests 81 

1777. 

To the same. 30-31 July. Bad news from the north. Disti-ust of 
foreign officers. Female mob m Boston 83 

To the same. 5 August. Alarm in Boston. Proves unfounded. 
Mourns her separation from liim 85 

To the same. 17 September. Letter from Mr. Lovell. Horrible 
apprehensions 87 

To the same. 25 October. General Burgoyne's surrender. Gen- 
erous terms offered to him. Reflections upon her wedding amii- 
versary 88 

1778. 

To the same. 8 March. Rumor of Dr. Franklin's assassination. 
Apprehensions at her husband's departure for Europe. Directions 
to her son 90 

To the same. 18 May. Anxious for intelligence of him. Attach- 
ment to her native country. Opposite conduct of France and of 
Great Britain. Depreciated currency 92 

To John Quincy Adams. June. Advice 94 

To John Adams. 30 June. Receipt of his fii'St letter from abroad. 
Begs for more. Defective female education in America. Sheb- 
beare's Letters 97 

To the same. October. Officers of the French fleet. Visits the ship 
of Count d'Estamg. Is displeased with the brevitj'' of her husband's 
letters. Paper money 99 

To the same. 27 December. Her lonely situation this whiter. 
Effect of a Scotch song 102 

1779. 

To the same. 20 March -23 April. Letters intercepted. Paper 

money. Public news. Capture of British vessels 103 

To the same. 8 June. Depreciated currency. Death of Dr. Win- 

throp 106 

To the same. 14 November. Her house looks disconsolate at liis 
departure 110 

1780 

To John Quincy Adams. 12 January. Ad\nce. Advantages of trav- 
elling. Great necessities call out great virtues 110 

To the same. 20 March. Religion the only foundation of virtue. 

Self-knowledge reconnnended, and self-government 112 

To Jolm Adams. 16 July. Receipt of letters. Sacrifices to support 
the war 116 

To the same. 15 October. Arnold's plot. Prices current 119 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

Page. 
1781. 

To the same. 28 January. Repeal of the tender law. Heavy taxes. 

British employ Arnold 120 

To the same. 25 May. Beauty of the season. Hopes he may make 

a treaty with Holtand. The currency has lost all value 123 

*To Jolm Quincy Adams. 26 May. Has received no letters. Recom- 
mends the study of Dutch liistory 126 

To Jolm Adams. 9 December. Marquis de la Fayette. The surren- 
der of Cornwallis. Anxiety about the return of her second son. 
Has the heart-ache for want of letters. Requests assistance for 
townsmen in British prisons. Hopes for his return. Affairs of busi- 
ness 127 

1782. 

To the same. 25 October. Eighteenth anniversary of her wedding. 

Reflections. Return of the prisoners 132 

To the same, 13-25 November. Regrets his long absence. Her 

confidence in him 134 

To the same. 23 December. Expresses her feelings. Willing to 

sacrifice them for the conmion good 136 

1783: 
To the same. 28-29 April. Joy at the news of peace. Amused by 

Ms journal. Movement in -Congress. Doubts about accepting his 

invitation to join him in Europe 138 

To the same. 20 June. Uncertainty as to his course. Doubtful 

state of the country. Would prefer his return to going to join him . 141 
To the same. 19 November. Decides not to cross the ocean tins 

winter. Anxious about his health 144 

To Jolm Qumcy Adanxs. 20 November. Rejoiced to hear at last 

from him. Advice 146 

To John Adams. 18 December. Attends divine service in Boston. 

Feelings occasioned by the Thanksgivnig sermon of Dr. Clarke. 

Arrival of, and intenaew with Mr. Dana. Answers her husband's 

pressing mvdtation to join Mm 149 

To John Q,umcy Adams. 26 December. Comparison of Russia and 

America. Causes of the rise and fall of nations. Advice .... 152 

1784. 

To Jolm Adams. 15 March. Arrangements for departure. General 
Court of Massachusetts. Refugees. Cautions her husband about 
the use made of his private letters 155 

To Mrs. Cranch. 6-30 July. Journal on board ship Active. Fellow 
passengers. . Arrival at Deal. Mode of landing on the beach. 
Journey to London. Seizure of a highwayman. Visiters in Lon- 
don. Copley's Paintmgs. Mrs. Wright's wax figures. The 
Foundling and Magdalen hospitals. Arrival of her son 157 

*To Miss E. Cranch, 1 August. American society in London. Sight- 
seeing. Eflect of her letter 186 

To Mrs. Cranch. 5 September. At Auteuil. Describes her house. 
Habits and expense of living in France. Sen-ants 188 

*To Miss E. Cranch. 5 September. Describes her residence at Au- 
teuil, and the gardens. Extravagance of the proprietor 194 



^ 



CONTENTS. IX 

Page. 

To Miss Lucy Cranch. 5 September. Difference of travelling: in 
France and in England. Prefers London to Paris. Dines with a 
French lady at Dr. Franklin's. Her disgust 198 

*To Mrs. Warren. 5 September - 12 December. Describes the 
French. Pleasure their business. Theatres, Liquiries. European 
politics. Di.'^appointed in the climate 200 

*To Miss E. Cranch. 3-13 December. Her dream. Describes her 
company at a dinner party. American ladies at Paris. Describes 
her rooms. Study of French 206 

To Mrs. Cranch. 9-12 December. Her solitude out of Paris. 
Expense of hvmg. Visit to the Marquise de la Fayette^ who dines 
with her. Manners and di'ess of French ladies. Arrival of letters 
from home. Loth to part with her son 212 

To Mi's. Shaw. 14 December. Auteuil famous only as the residence 
of learned men. French habits on Sunday. Fondness for display. 
Great nmiiber of domestics 219 

1785. 

*To Miss E. Cranch. 3 January. Describes the French Theatre. 
Interior • . 222 

To the Rev. Jolm Shaw. 18 January. The churches in Paris. 
Auricular confession. Visits the church of St. Roch. Chonis of 
charity boys. The Abbe Thayer 226 

To Mrs. Storer. 20 January. Climate of France. Dress and man- 
ners of the ladies. Melodramatic pantomime. Dancing. Fashions 
in dress 2^ 

To Miss Lucy Cranch. 24 January. Reproves her for her hand- 
writing. Twelfth-day cake. The way Idngdoms are obtamed . . 231 

To Mi's. Cranch. 20 February - 13 March. Effect upon her of opera 
dancing. It injures the public morals. Dinners at the Marquis de 
la Fayette's and at home 233 

*To Miss E. Cranch. 8 March. Comparison of climate. State of 
her house and garden. American visiters 236 

To Miss Lucy Cranch. 7 May. Dines at Mi-. Jefterson's. Walli; m 

the gardens of the Tuileries 239 

To Mi'S. Shaw. 8 May. Regret at leaving Auteuil. Expense of 
frequent removals. Clothing mjm'ed in travelling. Anecdote . . . 242 

*To Miss E. Cranch. 8 May. The carnival at Paris. Lent. Holy 
Sunday. Long Champs. Removal to London 244 

To Mrs. Cranch. 8-10 May. Feels her absence from home. Her 
son about to leave her 247 

*To Miss E. Cranch. 10 May. The Baron de Stael and his establish- 
ment. The Duchess d' Enville. Female dress in France .... 249 

To Mi'S. Cranch. 24 June. Arrival in London. Lookmg for a house. 
Expense of living. Impostors. Mr. Adams presented to the King 
and Queen. A visit from Lady Effingham. Ceremony of presenta- 
tion indispensable. Her own dress and that of her daughter. She 
describes the scene. Want of female beauty at court. Tory abuse . 251 

To Mrs. Shaw. 15 August. Her dwelling well situated. Eliberality 
of the English to other nations. Reasons why she prefers America 
to Europe. English hostility to the former . ' 259 



X CONTENTS. 

Page. 

To Miss Lucy Cranch. 27 August. Letter-writing. Value of 

Richardson's writings. Extract from Sir Joshua Reynolds . . . .261 
*To Miss E. Cranch. 2 September. Contrasts England and America. 

Poverty in the former. Handel concert 263 

To Jolm Quincy Adams. 6 September. How she spent Sunday. 

Arrival of letters from home. Joy and grief near alan. Remarks 

upon the pohcy of England towards America. Cardinal de Rohan . 267 
To Mrs. Cranch. 30 September. Dislikes the Court. Attends a 

drawing-room. English not so handsome as American women. 

Miss. Dana. Reflections upon the illness of her amit 270 

To the same. 1 October. Company to dine. The corps diplomatique. 

Visit from Madame de Pinto. English feelmg against America. 

Letter from Mi\ Jefferson 272 

1786. 

To Mrs. Shaw. 4 March. Mrs. Siddons in the character of Desde- 
mona ; in Matilda and in Lady Macbeth. Dislikes Shakspeare's 
play of " Othello." Effect upon her of Colonel Trumbull's painting 
of the death of General Warren. Character of her son .... 275 

*To Miss E. Cranch. 2 April. A London Rout at Madame de 

Pmto's. Ball at the French ambassador's. Mrs. Fitzherbert . . . 278 

To Miss Lucy Cranch. 2 April. America remarkable for cultivating 
the social a'ffections. Ball at the French Ambassador's. Her own 
di-ess. Her daughter's. Describes Lady North and her daughter . 282 

To Mrs. Cranch. 6 April. Rout at the Swedish Minister's. Cards. 

English ladies gamble 286 

To the same. 21 May. Office of American Muuster not desirable. 
Improper notions of education for American boys. Dines at the 
Bishop of St. Asaph'.s. Dr. Priestley 287 

*To Mrs. Warren, 24 May. Condolence for the loss of her son . .290 

*To Miss E. Cranch. 18 July. Comparison of England and America 
. m. natural advantages, and in cultivation. Laches di-esses . . ... 291 

To Miss Lucy Cranch. 20 July. Duke of Northumberland laid in. 

state. Excursion to Portsmouth. Wmdsor. The Castle .... 295 

*To Misses E. and L. Cranch. 23 July. Sends presents and remem- 
brances 299 

To Mrs. Cranch. 12 September. Visit to Holland. Its friendship 
not appreciated m America. Amsterdam. The Exchange. Gen- 
eral unpressions of the country and the people. Return to Lon- 
don. Receipt of American letters. Death of her aimt 300 

To John Quincy Adams. 27 September - 14 October. Visit to the 
Hyde. Singularity of Mr. Brand-Hollis. His cabmet of curiosi- 
ties. His sister and liis gardener 305 

To Mrs. Shaw. 21 November. Visit from Mr. . His unlucky 

observations to Mr. Adams. Reflections upon general benevolence. 
Mourning for Pi-incess Amelia 309 

1787. 

To Mrs. Cranch. 20 January. Visit to Bath. Story of Bladud. 
Describes the place. Its dissipation. Riots in America. Tusca- 
rora rice 312 

To the same. 25 - 27 February. Disturbances in Massachusetts . .317 



CONTENTS. XI 

Page. 

To the same. 28 April, Insurrection of Shays. Tory mahgnity . . 320 
*To Mrs. Warren. 14 May. Mrs. Elizabeth Montague. Vices of the 
Prince of Wales. Faith in her own country. Announces herself a 

grandmother 322 

To Mrs. Cranch. 16 July. Uneasy for want of letters, and anxious 
respectmg her son's health. Mr. Jefterson's daughter. Commence- 
ment day 326 

To the same. 15 September. Journey into Devonshire. Winchester. 
Family of Quincy. Southampton. Weymouth. Axminsler. Exe- 
ter. Plymouth. Kingsbridge. Cranch "family. Eflect of attending 

public places upon female character 329 

To Miss Lucy Cranch. 3 October. Visit to Blenheim 336 

To John Quincy Adams. 12 October. Enjoins moderation. Affairs in 
Holland. Desire for war m Great Britain 341 

1789. 

To Mrs. Shaw. 27 September. At Riclmiond Hill, N. Y. Describes 
her residence. Organization of the government 343 

1790. 

To Thomas Brand-Hollis. 6 September. The same subject .... 345 
To Mrs. Smith. 21-28 November. Arrival at Piiiladelphia. State of 

her hovise. Compares Philadelpliia to New York 348 

To the same. 26 December. Attends at a di-a wing-room. Her dis- 
tance from Philadelpliia 350 

1791. 

To the same. 8 January. Advises retirement. Visits the theatre . . 352 
To the same. 25 January. News from Europe. Agreeable society. 

Value of parents 353 

To the same. 21 February. Dines at the President's. Education of 

children. Dr. Watts's "Moral Songs for Children." 355 

To Mrs. Shaw. 20 March Excuses her not waiting. Describes her 

residence near Piiiladelpliia 357 

1793. 
*To Mrs. Smith. 11 February. The election of a Vice President. Par- 
tisan politics. Attacks upon the President. The French Revolution . 359 

1794. 

To Mrs. Smith. 3 February. Fond of society. Reflections upon the 
execution of Marie Antoinette 362 

To the same. 8 March. Ilhiess of Mr. Adams's mother. Old age. 
Seneca 364 

To the same. 10 March. Cautions respecting foreigners. Value of 
rehgion and attendance upon public worship 365 

1795. 
*To Thomas B. Adams. 11 Febraary. Disapproves his fonn of address 
toiler. Titles. Discus.sion in Coneress. Description of Holland. Sir 
W. Temple. Pictm-es. One by Potter described 368 

1796. 
To Thomas B. Adams. 8 November. Difficult prospect in the Presi- 



XU CONTENTS, 

Page, 
dency. Party invective against her hvisband. Against Washington. 
Extract from Dr. Priestley. Changes during his absence 370 

1797. 

To Jolm Adams. 8 February. Congratulation and good wishes . . . 373 
*Mi'S. James "Warren to Mrs. Adams. 27 February. Congratulation . 374 

*To Mrs. "Warren. 4 March. Reply to the preceding 375 

To Jokn Adams. 26 April. Effect of funeral rites in her family. Ready 
to join him 376 

179S. 

*To Mi's. Warren. 17 June. PoUtical affaii's. The designs of her 
husband. The envoys to France 377 

1800. 

To Thomas B. Adams. 13 November. Result of the election of Presi- 
dent. Proposed return to Quincy 380 

To Mrs. Smith. 21 November. An-ival at Wasliington. Inconve- 
nience of her new situation. Meeting of Congress 381 

To the same. 27 November. Want of wood. Answer of the House 
of Representatives to the President's Speech. Difficulty of returning 
visits 384 

1801. 

To Colonel W. S. Smith. 3 May. Acloiowledges the receipt of plants 

at Quincy. Has returned to her dairy 385 

To Thomas B. Adams. 12 July. In\ites him to Quincy 386 

1803. 

*To Mrs. Warren. 16 January. Renewal of correspondence. Com- 
plaints of misrepresentations. Happiness at home. Pecuniary mat- 
ters 387 

1804. 

To Thomas Jefferson. 20 May. Condolence upon the death of his 
daughter 389 

To the same. 1 July. Replies to his letter. Mr. Adams's last appoint- 
ments to office justified. Complains in turn of the remission of Cal- 
lender's fine. Of one other act of .his Administration 390 

To the same. 18 August. Acknowledges the receipt of his letter. 
Sedition Law justified. Explains the act alluded to in her preceding 
letter. The removal of her son 394 

To the same. 25 October. Has received his letter. Further discus- 
sion of her son's removal. Diflers in opinion wath him and temiinates 
the correspondence 396 

Memorandum by John Adams subjoined to the letter of the 25 October. 
19 November 399 

• 1805. 

To Mrs. Packard. 11 March. Condolence upon the death of her 
mother, Mrs. Quincy . . . " 399 

1809. 
To Mrs. Shaw. 5 June, Has been ill. Effect of old age and loss 



• 



CONTENTS. Xlll 

Page, 
of friends. Duly of an American wife. Mrs. Grant's " Letters 
from the Mountains" 401 

1811. 

To Caroline A. Smilli. 26 February. Grateful for blessings. Snow. 

Love me, love my dog. Juno well 403 

*To Mrs. Gushing. 5 March. Her son's appointment as a Judge of 

the Supreme Court ; her wish that he should accept it 404 

To William Cranch. 17 October. Death of his father. Illness of 

his mother T 406 

To the same. 25 October. Gives liim an account of his mother's 

death, and of the joint fimeral of his parents. Mr. Wliitney's sermon 407 

1812. 

To Caroline A. Smith. 19-27 November. Journal of a day. Re- 
flections upon her birtli-day. Thanksgi\ang day 409 

*To Mrs. Warren. 30 December. Reflections upon the war and upon 
Napoleon Bonaparte. Sends her a memorial 412 

1813. 

*To Mrs. Cushhig. 18 February. Condolence 414 

1814. 

To F. A. Vanderkemp. 3 February. Learned ladies. Madame ^ 

de Stael 415 

*To Mrs. Warren. 5 May. Condolence on the death of her yoimgest 
brother 417 

To Mrs. Shaw. 30 December. Reflections upon the past year. 
Death of friends. Of Mrs. Warren. Of Elbridge Gerry. Ap- 
proves the course of Mr. Gore 418 

1816. 

To Mrs. Dexter. 12 May. Condoles with her upon the death of 
Mr. Dexter. Mr. Adams's opuaion of liim 419 

Appendix. No. 1 423 

Appendix. No. II 427 " 

Eleven Letters on the study of the Bible, by Jolm Quincy Adams. 



M E M I R . 



MEMOIR. 



The memorials of that generation, by whose efforts the 
independence of the United States was achieved, are in 
great abundance. There is hardly an event of importance,, 
from the year 1765 to the date of the definitive treaty of 
peace with Great Britain, in September, 1783, which has 
not been recorded, either by the industry of actors upon the 
scene, or by the indefatigable activity of a succeeding class 
of students. These persons have, with a highly commend- 
able zeal, devoted themselves to the investigation of all par- 
ticulars, even the most minute, that relate to this interesting 
period. The individuals, called to act most conspicuously 
in the Revolution, have many of them left voluminous col- 
lections of papers, which, as time passes, find their way to 
the light by publication, and furnish important illustrations 
of the feelings and motives under which the contest was 
carried on. The actors are thus made to stand in bold re- 
lief before us. We not only see the public record, but also 
the private commentary ; and these, taken in connexion 
with the contemporaneous histories, all of which, however 
defective in philosophical analysis, are invaluable deposito- 
ries of facts related by living witnesses, will serve to trans- 
mit to posterity the details for a narration in as complete a 
form as will in all probability ever be attained by the im- 
perfect faculties of man. 

B 



Xviii MEMOIR. 



^ Admitting these observations to be true, there is, never- 
theless, a distinction to be drawn between the materials for 
a history of action and those for one of feeling; between 
the conduct of men aiming at reputation among their fellow- 
beings, and the private, familiar sentiments, that run into 
the texture of the social system, without remark or the hope 
of observation. Here it is, that something like a void in 
our annals appears still to exist. Our history is for the most 
part wrapped up in the forms of ofRce. The great men of 
the Revolution, in the eyes of posterity, are like heroes of 
a mythological age. They are seen, for the most part, 
when conscious that they are acting upon a theatre, where 
individual sentiment must be sometimes disguised, and often 
sacrificed, for the public good. Statesmen and generals 
rarely say all they think or feel. The consequence is, that, 
in the papers which come from them, they are made to as- 
sume a uniform of grave hue, which, though it doubtless 
exalts the opinion later generations may entertain of their 
perfections, somewhat diminishes the interest with which 
they study their character. Students of human nature seek 
for examples of man under circumstances of difficulty and 
trial; man as he is, not as he would appear ; but there are 
many reasons why they are often baffled in the search. 
We look for the workings of the heart, when those of the 
head alone are presented to us. We watch the emotions of 
the spirit, and yet find clear traces only of the reasoning of 
the intellect. The solitary mediation, the confidential whis- 
per to a friend, never meant to reach the ear of the multi- 
tude, the secret wishes, not to be blazoned forth to catch 
applause, the fluctuations between fear and hope, that most 
betray the springs of action, — these are the guides to cha- 
racter, which most frequently vanish with the moment that 
called them forth, and leave, nothing to posterity but the 
coarser elements for judgment, that may be found in elabo- 
rated results. 

There is, moreover, another distinction to be observed, 
which is not infrequently lost sight of. It is of great impor- 
tance not only to understand the nature of the superiority 



MEMOIR. XIX 

of the individuals, who have made themselves a name above 
their fellow-beings, but to estimate the degree in which the 
excellence for which they were distinguished was shared by 
those among whom they lived. Inattention to this duty 
might present Patrick Henry and James Otis, Washington, 
Jefferson, and Samuel Adams, as the causes of the Ameri- 
can Revolution, which they were not. There was a moral 
principle in the field, to the power of which a great majority 
of the whole population of the colonies, whether male or 
female, old or young, had been long and habitually trained 
to do homage. The individuals named, with the rest of 
their celebrated associates, who best represented that moral 
principle before the world, were not the originators, but the 
spokesmen of the general opinion, and instruments for its 
adaptation to existing events. Whether fighting in the field, 
or deliberating in the Senate, their strength against Great 
Britain was not that of numbers, nor of wealth, nor of 
genius ; but it drew its nourishment from the sentiment that 
pervaded the dwellings of the entire population. 

How much this home sentiment did then, and does ever, / 
depend upon the character of the female portion of the ■ 
people, will be too readily understood by all, to require ex- 
planation. The domestic hearth is the first of schools, and v 
the best of lecture-rooms ; for there the heart will coope- 
rate with the mind, the affections with the reasoning power. 
And this is the scene for the almost exclusive sway of the 
weaker sex. Yet, great as the influence thus exercised un- 
doubtedly is, it escapes observation in such a manner, that ^ 
history rarely takes much account of it. The maxims ofj 
religion, faith, hope, and charily, are not passed through 
the alembic of logical proof, before they are admitted into 
the daily practice of women. They go at once into the 
teachings of infancy, and thus form the only high and pure 
motives of which matured manhood can, in its subsequent 
action, ever boast. Neither, when the stamp of duty is to 
be struck in the young mind, is there commonly so much 
of alloy in the female heart as with men, with which the 
genuine metal may be fused, and the face of the coin made 



at 



^Kf 



XX MEMOIR. 



dim. There is not so much room for the doctrines of ex- 
pediency, and the promptings of private interest, to com- 
promise the force of public example. In every instance of 
domestic convulsions, and when the pruning-hook is deserted 
for the sword and musket, the sacrifice of feelings made by 
the female sex is unmixed with a hope of worldly compen- 
sation. With them there is no ambition to gratify, no fame 
to be gained by the simply negative virtue of privations suf- 
fered in silence. There is no action to drown in its noise 
and bustle a full sense of the pain that must inevitably at- 
tend it. The lot of woman, in times of trouble, is to be a 
passive spectator of events, which she can scarcely hope to 
make subservient to her own fame, or to control. 
f If it were possible to get at the expression of feelings by 
I women in the heart of a community, at a moment of extra- 
} ordinary trial, recorded in a shape evidently designed to be 
1 secret and confidential, this would seem to present the surest 
I and most unfailing index to its general character. Hitherto 
I we have not gathered much of this material in the United 
I States. The dispersion of famihes, so common in America, 
the consequent destruction of private papers, the defective 
nature of female education before the Revolution, the diffi- 
/culty and danger of free communication, and the engrossing 
y/ character, to the men, of public, and to the women, of do- 
mestic cares, have all contributed to cut short, if not com- 
pletely to destroy, the sources of information. It is truly 
remarked, in the present collection, that " instances of pa- 
tience, perseverance, fortitude, magnanimity, courage, hu- 
manity, and tenderness, which would have graced the Roman 
character, were known only to those who were themselves 
,the actors, and whose modesty could not suffer them to 
J'blazon abroad their own fame."i The heroism of the 
females of the Revolution has gone from memory with the 
generation that witnessed it, and nothing, absolutely nothing, 
remains upon the ear of the young of the present day, but 
the faint echo of an expiring general tradition. Neither is 

» Letter, 4 March, 1786, p. 277. 



MEMOIR. XXI 

there much remembrance of the domestic manners of the 
last century, when, with more of admitted distinctions than 
at present, there was more of general equality ; nor of the 
state of social feeling, or of that simplicity of intercourse, 
which, in colonial times, constituted in New England as 
near an approach to the successful exemplification of the 
democratic theory, as the irregularity in the natural gifts of 
men will, in all probability, ever practically allow. 

It is the purpose of this volume to contribute something 
to supply the deficiency, by giving to tradition a palpable J 
form. The present is believed to be the first attempt, in \f 
the United States, to lay before the public a series of private I 
letters, written without the remotest idea of publication, by! 
a woman, to her husband, and others of her nearest and! 
dearest relations. Their greatest value consists in the fact,* 
susceptible of no misconception, that they furnish an exact 
transcript of the feelings of the writer, m times of no ordi- v 
nary trial. Independently of this, the variety of scenes in 
which she wrote, and the opportunities furnished for obser- 
vation in the situations in which she was placed by the ele- if 
vation of her husband to high official positions in the coun- 1 
try, may contribute to sustain the interest with which they 
will be read. The undertaking is, nevertheless, somewhat 
novel and perhaps adventurous, since it brings forward to 
public notice a person who has now been long removed 
from the scene of action, and of whom, it is not unreason- 
able to suppose, the present generation of readers can have ~ 
neither personal knowledge nor recollection. For the sake 
of facilitating their progress, and explaining the allusions to 
persons and objects very frequently occurring, it may not 
be deemed improper here to premise some account of her 
life. 

There were few persons of her day and generation, who 
dsrived theirorigin, or imbibed their character, more exclu- 
sively from the genuine stock of the Massachusetts Puritan 
settlers, than Abigail Smith. Her father, the Reverend v/ 
William Smith, was the settled minister of the Congrega- 
tional Church at Weymouth, for more than forty years, and 



Xxii MEMOIR. 

until his death. Her mother, Elizabeth Quincy, was the 
grand-daughter of the Reverend John Norton, long the pas- 
tor of a church of the same denomination in the neighbour- 
ing town of Hingham, and the nephew of John Norton, well 
known in the annals of the colony. ^ Her maternal grand- 
father, John Quincy, was the grandson of Thomas Shepard, 
minister of Charlestown, distinguished in his day, the son 
of the more distinguished Thomas Shepard of Cambridge, 
whose name still lives in one of the churches of that town. 
These are persons whose merits may be found fully re- 
corded in the pages of Mather and of Neal. They were 
among the most noted of the most reputed class of their 
iday. In a colony, founded so exclusively upon motives of 
Vreligious zeal as Massachusetts was, it necessarily followed, 
that the ordinary distinctions of society were in a great de- 
gree subverted, and that the leaders of the church, though 
without worldly possessions to boast of, were the most in 
honor everywhere. Education was promoted only as it 
was subsidiary to the great end of studying or expounding 
the Scriptures ; and whatever of advance was made in the 
intellectual pursuits of society, was rather the incidental 
than the direct result of studies necessary to fit men for a 
holy calling. Hence it was, that the higher departments of 
knowledge were entered almost exclusively by the clergy. 
Classical learning was a natural, though indirect conse- 
quence of the acquisition of those languages, in which the 
New Testament and the Fathers were to be studied ; and 
dialectics formed the armour, of which men were com- 
pelled to learn the use, as a preparation for the wars of re- 
ligious controversy. The mastery of these gave power and 
authority to their possessors, who, by a very natural transi- 
tion, passed from being the guides of religious faith to their 
fellow-men, to be guardians of their education. To them, 
as the fountains of knowledge, and possessing the gifts most 
prized in the community, all other ranks in society cheer- 
fully gave place. If a festive entertainment was meditated^ 

1 Hutchinson, Vol. I. pp. 220, et seq. 



MEMOIR. XXlll 

the minister was sure to be first on the list of those to be 
invited. If any assembly of citizens was held, he must be 
there to open the business with prayer. If a political mea- 
sure was in agitation, he was among the first whose opinion 
was to be consulted. Even the civil rights of the other 
citizens for a long time depended, in some degree, upon his 
good word ; and, after this rigid rule was laid aside, he yet 
continued, in the absence of technical law and lawyers, to 
be the arbiter and the judge in the differences between his 
fellow-men. He was not infrequently the family physician. 
The great object of instruction being religious, the care of 
the young was also in his hands. The records of Harvard 
University, the darling child of Puritan affections, show that 
out of all the presiding officers, during tiie century and a 
half of colonial days, but two were laymen, and not minis- 
ters of the prevailing denomination ; and that out of all, 
who, in the early times, availed themselves of such advan- 
tages as this institution could then offer, nearly half the 
number did so for the sake of devoting themselves to the 
service of the gospel. 

But the prevailing notion of the purpose of education was 
attended with one remarkable consequence. The cultiva- 
tion of the female mind was regarded with utter indiffer- 
ence. It is not impossible, that the early example of Mrs. 
Hutchinson, and the difficulties in which the public exercise 
of her gifts involved the colony, had established in the gen- 
eral mind a conviction of the danger that may attend the 
meddling of women with abstruse points of doctrine ; and 
these, however they might confound the strongest intellect, 
were, nevertheless, the favorite topics of thought and dis- 
cussion in that generation. Waving a decision upon this, it 
may very safely be assumed, not only that there was very 
little attention given to the education of women, but that, as 
Mrs. Adams, in one of her letters,^ says, " It was fashion- 
able to ridicule female learning." The only chance for 
much intellectual improvement in the female sex was, 

1 Page 99. 




XXIV MEMOIR. 

therefore, to be found in the families of that, which was 
the educated class, and in occasional intercourse with the 
learned of their day. Whatever of useful instruction was 
received in the practical conduct of life, came from mater- 
nal lips ; and what of further mental development, de- 
pended more upon the eagerness with which the casual 
teachings of daily conversation were treasured up, than 
upon any labor expended purposely to promote it. 

Abigail Smith was the second of three daughters. Her 
father, as has been already mentioned, was the minister of 
a small Congregational Church in the town of Weymouth, 

, during the middle of the last century. She was born in 
\/that town, on the 11th of November, 1744, O. S. In her 
neighbourhood, there were not many advantages of instruc- 
tion to be found ; and even in Boston, the small metropolis 
near at hand, for reasons already stated, the list of accom- 
plishments within the reach of females was, probably, very 
short. She did not enjoy an opportunity to acquire even 
such as there might have been, for the delicate state of her 
health forbade the idea of sending her away from home to 
obtain them. In a letter, written in 1817, the year before 
her death, speaking of her own deficiencies, she says : 
" My early education did not partake of the abundant op- 
portunities which the present days offer, and which even 
our common country schools now afford. I never toas sent 

ho any school. I was always sick. Female education, in 
the best families, went no further than writing and arithme- 
tic ; in some few and rare instances, music and dancing." 
Hence it is not unreasonable to suppose that the knowledge 
gained was picked up by her as an eager gatherer from 
the society into which she was thrown, rather than acquired 
from any systematic instruction. 

This fact, that the author of the letters in the present 

/volume never went to any school, is a very important one 
^ to a proper estimate of her character. For, whatever may 
be the decision of the long-vexed question between the ad- 
vantages of public and those of private education, few per- 
sons will deny, that the}" produce marked differences in the 



MEMOIR. XXV 

formation of character. Seclusion from companions of the / 
same age, at any time of life, is calculated to develop the^/ 
imaginative faculty, at the expense of the judgment ; but , 
especially in youth, when the most durable impressions are | 
making. The ordinary consequence, in females of a medi- 
tative turn of mind, is the indulgence of romantic and ex- 
aggerated sentiments drawn from books, which, if subjected 
to the ordinary routine of large schools, become worn down 
by the attrition of social intercourse. These ideas, formed 
in solitude, in early life, often remain in the mind, even 
after the realities of the world surround those who hold 
them, and perpetually modify their conclusions. They are 
constantly visible, in the letters of this volume, even in the 
midst of the severest trials. They form what may be con- 
sidered the romantic turn of the author's mind ; but, in her 
case, they were so far affected by a great infusion of reli- 
gious principle and of natural good sense, as to become of 
eminent service in sustaining her through the painful situa- 
tions in which she was placed, instead of nursing that spe- 
cies of sickly sensibility, which too frequently, in similar 
circumstances, impairs, if it does not destroy, all power of 
practical usefulness. 

At Mount Wollaston, a part of Braintree, the town ad- 
joining Weymouth, lived Colonel John Quincy, her grand- 
father on the mother's side, and a gentleman, who, for very 
many years, enjoyed, in various official situations, much of 
the confidence of the Colony. At his house, and under the 
instruction of his wife, her grandmother, she appears to 
have imbibed most of the lessons which made the deepest 
impression upon her mind. Of this lady, the daughter of 
the Reverend John Norton, nothing is now known, but what 
the frequent and cheerful acknowledgment of her merit, by 
her disciple, tells us. " I have not forgotten," says the lat- 
ter to her own daughter, in the year 1795, " the excellent 
lessons which I received from my grandmother, at a very 
early period of life. I frequently think they made a more 
durable impression upon my mind, than those which I re- 
ceived from my own parents. Whether it was owing to 



XXVI MEMOIR. 

the happy method of mixing instruction and amusement 
together, or from an inflexible adherence to certain prin- 
ciples, the utility of which I could not but see and approve 
when a child, I know not; but maturer years have rendered 
them oracles of wisdom to me. I love and revere her 
memory ; her lively, cheerful disposition animated all 
around her, whilst she edified all by her unaffected piety. 
This tribute is due to the memory of those virtues, the 
sweet remembrance of which will flourish, though she has 
long slept with her ancestors." Again, in another letter to 
the same person, in 1808, she says ; " I cherish her me- 
mory with holy veneration, whose maxims I have treasured 
up, whose virtues live in my remembrance ; happy if I 
could say, they have been transplanted into mj'- life." 

But, though her early years were spent in a spot of so 
great seclusion as her grandfather's house must then have 
been, it does not appear that she remained wholly unac- 
quainted with young persons of her own sex and age. She 
had relations and connexions, both on the father's and the 
mother's side ; and with these she was upon as intimate 
terms as circumstances would allow. The distance be- 
tween the homes of the young people was, however, too 
great, and the means of their parents too narrow, to admit 
of very frequent personal intercourse ; the substitute for 
which was a rapid interchange of written communications. 
The letter- writing propensity manifested itself early in this 
youthful circle. A considerable number of the epistles of 
her correspondents have been preserved among the papers 
of Mrs. Adams. They are deserving of notice only as they 
furnish a general idea of the tastes and pursuits of the young 
women of that day. Perhaps the most remarkable thing 
about them is the evident influence upon the writers, which 
the study of " The Spectator," and of the poets, appears to 
have had. This is perceptible in the more important train 
of thought and structure of language, not less than in the 
trifles of a taste for quotation and for fictitious signatures. 
Calliope and Myra, Arpasia and Aurelia, have effectually 
succeeded in disguising their true names from the eyes of 



MEMOIR. XXVU 

all but the most curious inquirers. The signature of Miss yj 
Smith appears to have been Diana, a name which she 
dropped after her marriage, without losing the fancy that 
prompted its selection. Her letters, during the Revolu- 
tion, show clearly enough the tendency of her own thoughts ^ 
and feelings in the substitute, she then adopted, of Portia. 
Her fondness for quotations, the fashion of that day, it will 
be seen, was maintained through life. 

Perhaps there is no species of exercise, in early life, 
more productive of results useful to the mind, than that of 
writing letters. Over and above the mechanical facility of 
constructing sentences, which no teaching will afford so 
well, the interest with which the object is commonly pur- 
sued, gives an extraordinary impulse to the intellect. - This 
is promoted, in a degree proportionate to the scarcity of 
temporary and local subjects for discussion. Where there 
is little gossip, the want of it must be supplied from books. 
The flowers of literature spring up where the weeds of 
scandal take no root. The young ladies of Massachusetts, 
in the last century, were certainly readers, even though 
only self-taught ; and their taste was not for the feeble and 
nerveless sentiment, or the frantic passion, which comes 
from the novels and romances in the circulating library of 
our day, but M'as derived from the deepest wells of English 
literature. The poets and moralists of the mother country 
furnished to these inquiring minds their ample stores, and 
they were used to an extent, which it is at least doubtful if 
the more pretending and elaborate instruction of the pre- 
sent generation would equal. 

Of Mrs. Adams's letters during this period of her youth, 
but very few remain in possession of her descendants. One 
specimen has been accidentally obtained, which makes the 
first in the present publication. The writer was, at the date 
of the letter, not quite seventeen, and was addressing a ladj'' 
some years older than herself. This may account for a 
strain of gravity rather beyond her years or ordinary dispo- 
sition. One other letter, written to Mr. Adams, after she 
was betrothed, and before she was married to him, has been 



XXviii MEMOIR. 



added, because it is believed to be more indicative of her 
usual temper at that age. These have been admitted to a 
place in the selection, not so much as claiming a particular 
merit, as because they are thought to furnish a standard of 
her mind, and general character, when a girl, by which the 
improvement and full development of her powers as a 
woman may readily be measured. 

The father of Mrs. Adams was a pious man, with some- 
thing of that vein of humor, not uncommon among the 
clergy of New England, which ordinarily found such a 
field for exercise as is displayed in the pages of Cotton 
Mather. He was the father of three daughters, all of them 
women of uncommon force of intellect, though the fortunes 
of two of them confined its influence to a sphere much 
more limited than that which fell to the lot of Mrs. Adams. 
Mary, the eldest, was married, in 1762, to Richard Cranch, 
an English emigrant, who had settled at Germantown, a 
part of Braintree, and who subsequently became a Judge of 
the Court of Common Pleas in Massachusetts, and died, 
highly respected, in the early part of the present century. 
The present William Cranch, of Washington, who has pre- 
sided so long, and with so much dignity and fidelity, over 
the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia, is the son of 
this marriage. Elizabeth, the youngest, was twice mar- 
ried ; first, to the Reverend John Shaw, minister of Haver- 
hill, in Massachusetts, and, after his death, to the Reverend 
Mr. Peabody, of Atkinson, New Hampshire. Thus much 
is necessary to be stated, in order to explain the relations, 
which the parties, in many of the letters, bore to each 
other. It is an anecdote told of Mr. Smith, that upon the 
ma]Tiage of his eldest daughter, he preached to his people 
from the text in the forty-second verse of the tenth chapter 
of Luke, " And Mary hath chosen that good part, which 
shall not be taken away from her." Two years elapsed, 
and his second daughter, the subject of this notice, was 
about to marry John Adams, then a lawyer in good prac- 
tice, when some disapprobation of the match appears to 
have manifested itself among a portion of his parishioners. 



MEMOIR. XXIX 

The profession of law was, for a long period in the colonial 
history of Massachusetts, unknown ; and, after circumstances 
had, called it forth, the prejudices of the inhabitants, who 
thought it a calling hardly honest, were arrayed against those 
who adopted it. There are many still living, who can re- 
member how strong they remained, even down to the time 
of the adoption of the present Federal Constitution ; and 
the discussions in the General Court often show, that they 
have not quite disappeared at this day. Besides this, the 
family of Mr. Adams, the son of a small farmer of the 
middle class in Braintree, was thought scarcely good enough 
to match with the minister's daughter, descended from so 
many of the shining lights of the colony. It is probable, 
that Mr. Smith was made aware of the opinions expressed 
among his people, for he is said, immediately after the 
marriage took place, to have replied to them by a sermon, 
the text of which, in evident allusion to the objection against 
lawyers, was drawn from Luke vii. 33 ; " For John came 
neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and ye say, He 
hath a devil.'''' ^ / 

{Mrs. Adams was married on the 25th of October, 1764, y 
having then nearly completed her twentieth year. The ten 
years immediately following present little that is worth re- 
cording. She appears to have passed a quiet, and appa- ^ 
rently very happy life, having her residence in Braintree, 
or in Boston, according as the state of her husband's health, 
then rather impaired, or that of his large professional prac- 
tice, demanded the change. Within this period she became 
the mother of a daughter, and of three sons, whose names 
will frequently appear in her letters ; and her domestic 
cares were relieved by the presence of her husband, who 
was absent from home only upon those occasions, when he, 
with the other lawyers of his time, was compelled to follow 

^ As this anecdote rests entirely upon tradition, it has been differently told ; 
and it is here admitted in this form rather as a characteristic feature of the 
age, and of the individual, than from any positive reliance upon its accuracy. 
There are yet transmitted, among the inliabitants of Weymouth and Hing- 
ham, many stories of Mr. Smith's application of texts, in a similar maimer, to 
the events of the Revolution, which render tlie truth of it higlily likely. 



XXX MEMOIR. 

(the court in its circuits. During these times, he used to 
write regularly to his wife, an account of his adventures 
and of his professional success. These letters remain, and 
I /furnish a curious rpcord of the manners and customs of the 
s provincial times. ^She does not appear to have often replied 
I to them. The only example is given in the present volume, 
and makes the third of the selection ; a letter, remarkable 
only for the picture it presents of peaceful domestic life, in 
contrast to the stormy period immediately succeeding. 

It is said by Governor Hutchinson, in the third volume of 
his History, that neither the health of Mr. Adams, nor his 
business, admitted of his constant application to public 
affairs in the manner that distinguished his kinsman, Sam- 
uel Adams, during the years preceding the breaking out of 
the Revolution. If the sum of that application is to be 
measured by the frequency of his appearance before the 
public as an actor in an official character upon the scene, 
the remark is true; for, up to the year 1774, he had served 
but once or twice as a representative in the General Court, 
and in no other situation. But this would furnish a very 
unfair standard, by which to try the extent of his labors for 
the public. Very often, as much is done by beforehand 
preparing the public mind for action, as by the conduct of 
that action after it has been commenced ; although the 
visible amount of exertion, by which alone the world forms 
its judgments, is in the two cases widely different. From 
the time of his marriage, in 1764, perhaps still earlier, 
when he, as a young lawyer, in 1761, took notes of the 
argument in the celebrated cause of the Writs of Assist- 
ance, there is evidence constantly presented of his active 
interest in the Revolutionary struggle. There is hardly a 
year in the interval between the earliest of these dates, and 
1774, that the traces of his hand are not visible in the news- 
papers of Boston, elaborately discussing the momentous 
questions, which preceded the crisis. It was during this 
period, that the " Essay on Canon and Feudal Law " was 
wntten. A long controversy with Major Brattle, upon the 
payment of the judges, and the papers of " Novanglus," 



MEMOIR. XXXI 

were other, though by no means all, the results of his 
labors. He drafted several of the papers of Instructions to 
the Representatives to the General Court, both in Boston 
and in his native town, and also some of the most elaborate 
legal portions of the celebrated controversy between that 
body and Governor Hutchinson. The tendency, which all 
these papers show, to seek for political truth in its funda- 
mental principles and most abstract forms, whilst it takes off 
much from the interest with which the merely general reader 
would now consider them, is yet of historical importance, 
as establishing the fact, how little of mere impulse there 
was in his mode of action against the mother country. 
They also show the extent of the studies to which his mind 
applied itself, and the depth of the foundation laid by him 
for his subsequent career. Yet, during all this time, his 
professional labors were never intermitted, and ceased only 
with the catastrophe which shut up the courts of justice, 
and rendered exertion upon a different theatre absolutely 
necessary to the maintenance of the fabric of society. 

Perhaps the preceding detail belongs more properly to a 
memoir of Mr. Adams, than to that of his wife. Yet it 
would be impossible to furnish any accurate idea of her 
character, without explaining the precise nature of the in- 
fluences acting upon her, whilst still young, and when that 
character was takino; its permanent form. ] There vvas no 
one, who witnessed his studies with greater interest, or who 
sympathized with him in the conclusions, to which his mind 
was forcing him, more deeply, than Mrs. Adams. And 
hence it was, that, as the day of trial came, and the hour 
for action drew near, she was found not unprepared to sub- 
mit to the lot appointed her. Mr. Adams was elected one 
of the delegates on the part of Massachusetts, instructed to 
meet persons chosen in the same manner from the other 
colonies, for the purpose of consulting in common upon the 
course most advisable to be adopted by them. In the month 
• of August, 1774, he left home, in company with Samuel 
Adams, Thomas Gushing, and Robert Treat Paine, to go to 
Philadelphia, at which place the proposed assembly was to 



XXXU MEMOIR. 

be held. It is from this period, that the correspondence, 
Mrs. Adams's portion of which is now submitted to the 
public, becomes interesting. The letter of the 19th of 
August of this year^ portrays her own feelings upon this, 

Vthe first separation of importance from her husband, and 
the anxiety with which she was watching the course of 
/ events. Yet there is in it not a syllable of regret for the 
past, or of fear for the future ; but, on the contrary, an 
acute perception of the obstacles in the way of an imme- 
diate return to peaceful times, and a deliberate preparation, 

^ by reading and reflection, for the worst. The Congress 
confined itself, in its first sessions, to consultation and re- 
monstrance. It therefore adjourned after the lapse of only 
two months. It is during this time, that the five letters in 
the present volume which bear date in 1774, were written. 
They furnish a lively picture of the state of public feeling 
in Massachusetts. That dated on the 14th of September, 
is particularly interesting, as it gives an account of the se- 
curing the gunpowder from the British, in her own town of 
Braintree, as well as a highly characteristic trait of New 
England, in the refusal to cheer on a Sunday. The last of 
this series, dated on the 16th of October, shows that all re- 
maining hopes of peace and reconciliation were fast vanish- 
ing from her mind ; and in an affecting manner she " bids 
adieu to domestic felicity perhaps until the meeting with 
her husband in another world, since she looks forward to 
nothing further in this than sacrifices, as the result of the 
impending contest." ^ 

The second meeting of the Congress, which took place 
in May, 1775, was marked by events which wholly changed 
the nature of its deliberations. Up to that period, the strug- 
gle had been only a dispute. It then took the more fearful 
shape of a war. Mr. Adams left his house and family at 
Braintree on the 1 4th of April, only five days before the 
memorable incident at Lexington, which was a signal for 
the final appeal to arms. The news of the affair reached 

1 Eage 11. 2 Page 21. 



MEMOIR. XXXIU 

him at Hartford, on his way to Philadelphia. General Gage 
had planned his attack upon Lexington with the knowledge 
that John Hancock and Samuel Adams, two of the dele- 
gates to the general Congress, were in that place at the 
time ; and it was probably one of his objects to seize them, 
if they could be found. Gordon, the historian, attributes 
their escape only to a friendly warning given them by a 
woman residing in Boston, but " unequally yoketi in poli- 
tics." There was nearly the same reason for apprehension 
on the part of John Adams. His house was situated still 
nearer to Boston, could be more easily approached by 
water, and his family, if not he himself, was known to be 
residing there. Under these circumstances, what the feel- 
ings of Mrs. Adams, left with the care of four small child- 
ren, the eldest not ten years of age, must have been, may ^Jf 
readily be conceived. But the letters, in which she de- ' 
scribes them, bring the idea home to the mind with still 
greater force. She tells us, that, upon the separation from 
her husband, " her heart had felt like a heart of lead," and 
that " she never trusts herself long with the terrors that 
sometimes intrude themselves upon her ; " that *' since the 
never-to-be-forgotten day of his departure, the 14th of April, 
nothino; had agitated her so much as the news of the arrival 
of recruits ; " and that, " she lives in continual expectation 
of alarms." Neither were these apprehensions altogether 
groundless. The letter of the 4th of May mentions that 
Colonel Quincy's family, whose residence was nearer to 
the water-side than hers, had taken refuge for one night 
with her. That of the 24th, gives a highly vivid picture of 
the consternation into which the whole town was thrown by 
a party of British, foraging upon an island in the harbour, 
close upon the town. Then follow the account of the battle 
on Bunker's Hill, and the burning of Charlestown, dreadful 
events to those in the immediate vicinity of Boston and to 
herself; yet, in the midst of them, the writer adds, that she 
is " distressed, but not dismayed," and that " she has been 
able to maintain a calmness and presence of mind, and 



XXXIV MEMOIR. 

hopes she shall, let the exigency of the time be what it 
will." 1 

But it is superfluous to endeavour to heighten the picture 
given in the letters with so much distinctness. Mr. Adams 
seems to have been startled on the arrival of the intelligence 
at Hartford. Conscious, however, that his return would 
rather tend to add to, than diminish, the hazard to which 
his family was exposed, he contented himself with writing 
encouragement, and, at the same time, his directions in 
case of positive danger. " In a cause which interests the 
whole globe," he says, " at a time when my friends and 
country are in such keen distress, I am scarcely ever inter- 
rupted in the least degree by apprehensions for my personal 
safety. I am often concerned for you and our dear babes, 
surrounded, as you are, by people who are too timorous, 
and too much susceptible of alarms. Many fears and 
jealousies and imaginary evils will be suggested to you, but 
I hope you will not be impressed by them. In case of real 
danger, of which you cannot fail to have previous intima- 
tions, fly to the woods with our children." ^ 

Mr. Adams very well knew to whom he was recommend- 
ing such an appalling alternative, the very idea of which 
would have been intolerable to many women. The trial 
Mrs. Adams was called to undergo from the fears of those 
immediately around her, was one in addition to that caused 
by her own apprehensions ; a trial, it may be remarked, of 
no ordinary nature. It is the tendency of women in gene- 
ral, to suffer quite as much anxiety from the activity of the 
imagination, as if it was, in every instance, founded upon 
reasonable cause. To overcome it, demands the exercise 
of a presence of mind and accuracy of judgment in distin- 
guishing the false from the true, that falls to the lot of few 
even of the stronger sex. 

But the sufferings of this remarkable year were not 
limited to the mind alone. The terrors of war were ac- 

1 Pages ,24 — 32. 

2 This letter will be found entire in the collection of Mr. Adams, published 
in 1841, under date 2 May, 1775. 



MEMOIR. XXXV 



companied with the ravages of pestilence. Mr. Adams 
was at home during the period of adjournment of the Con- 
gress, which was only for the month of August; but scarcely- 
had he crossed his threshold, when the dysentery, a disease 
which had already signified its approach in scattering in- 
stances about the neighbourhood of the besieged town of 
Boston where it had commenced, assumed a highly epi- 
demic character, and marked its victims in every family. 
A younger brother of Mr. Adams had fallen among the 
earliest in the town ; but it was not till his departure for 
Philadelphia, that almost every member of his own house- 
hold was seized. The letters written during the month of 
September, 1775, besides being exclusively personal, are 
too uniformly mournful in their tone to be suitable for in- 
sertion in full in the present collection ; yet it would be 
failing to give an accurate idea of the character of Mrs. 
Adams, to omit a notice of them altogether. A few ex- 
tracts, reserved for this personal narrative, have been thought 
likely to answer the purpose better than if they were sub- 
mitted in full to the public eye. 

On the 8th of September, she commences thus : 
" Since you left me, I have passed through great distress 
both of body and mind ; and whether greater is to be my 
portion. Heaven only knows. You may remember Isaac 
was unwell when you went from home. His disorder in- 
creased, until a violent dysentery was the consequence of 
his complaints. There was no resting-place in the house 
for his terrible groans. He continued in this state nearly 
one week, when his disorder abated, and we have now 
hopes of his recovery. Two days after he was sick, I was 
seized in a violent manner. Had I known you were at 
Watertown, I should have sent Bracket for you. I suffered 
greatly between my inclination to have you return, and my 
fear of sending, lest you should be a partaker of the com- 
mon calamity. After three days, an abatement of my dis- 
ease relieved me from that anxiety. The next person in 
the same week, was Susy ; her we carried home, and hope 
she will not be very bad. Our little Tommy was the next, 



\ 



I 



XXXVl MEMOIR. 

and he lies very ill now. Yesterday Patty was seized. 
Our house is a hospital in every part, and, what with my 
own weakness and distress of mind for my family, I have 
been unhappy enough. And such is the distress of the 
neighbourhood, that I can scarcely find a well person to 
assist me in looking after the sick." 

On the 16th, after saying that her letter will be only a 
bill of mortality, and that, of all the members of her house- 
bald, one only had escaped the disorder, she adds ; 

" The dread upon the minds of the people of catching 
the distemper is almost as great as if it was the small -pox. 
I have been distressed, more than ever I was in my life, to 
[procure watchers and to get assistance. We have been 
Tour Sabbaths without any meeting. Thus does pestilence 
travel in the rear of war, to remind us of our entire depend- 
ence upon that Being, who not only directeth the ' arrow 
by day,' but has also at His command ' the pestilence which 
walketh in darkness.' So uncertain and so transitory are 
all the enjoyments of life, that, were it not for the tender 
connexions which bind us, would it not be a folly to wish 
for a continuance here } " 

On the 25th, she mentions the illness of her mother. 

" I sit down with a heavy heart to write to you. I have 
had no other since you left me. Woe follows woe, and 
one affliction treads upon the heels of another. My distress 
in my own family having in some measure abated, it is ex- 
cited anew upon that of my dear mother. Her kindness 
brought her to see me every day when I was ill, and our 
little Thomas. She has taken the disorder, and lies so bad, 
that we have little hope of her recovery." 

On the 29th ; 

" It is allotted me to go from the sick and almost dying 
bed of one of the best of parents, to my own habitation, 
where again I behold the same scene, only varied by a re- 
moter connexion, 

' A bitter change, severer for severe.' 

You can more easily conceive than I describe, what are the 



MEMOIR. XXXVIl 

sensations of my heart when absent from either, continually- 
expecting a messenger with the fatal tidings." 

Then follows the letter of the 1st of October, which, as 
making the climax of her distress, is inserted at length in 
this volume. ^ The following week, Patty, the female do- 
mestic mentioned as the other sick person, also died ; after 
which, there appears to have been no return of the disease. 
But among all the trying scenes of the war of the Revolu- 
tion, it is doubtful whether any much exceeded this. 

" The desolation of war is not so distressing," she writes- 
" as the havoc made by the pestilence. Some poor parents 
are mourning the loss of three, four, and five children ; and 
some families are wholly stripped of every member." 

Such as these are the kinds of trial, of which history 
takes little or no note, yet in which female fortitude is most 
severely exercised. Without designing to detract from the 
imquestioned merit of that instrument, it must nevertheless 
be affirmed, that the Declaration of Independence, called 
by the celebrated John Randolph, " a fanfaronade of ab- 
stractions," might very naturally be expected to reward the 
efforts of its signers with a crown of immortality ; whilst 
the large share of the cost of maintaining it, wrung from 
the bleeding hearts of the women of the Revolution, was 
paid without any hope or expectation of a similar compen- 
sation. 

Mr. Adams was again at home in the month of Decem- 
ber, during the sessions of the Congress, which were now 
continued without intermission. It was upon his departure 
for the third time, that the long and very remarkable letter, 
bearing date March 2d, 1776, ^ and continued through seve- 
ral days, was written; a letter composed in the midst of the 
din of war, and describing hopes and fears in a manner 
deeply interesting. With this the description of active 
scenes in the war terminates. The British force soon after- 
wards evacuated Boston and Massachusetts, which did not 
again become the field of military action. The correspon- 

■• Page 52. 2 Page 67. 



) 



XXXVlll MEMOIR. 

dence now changes its character. From containing ac- 
counts of stirring events directly under the writer's eye, the 
letters assume a more private form, and principally relate 
to the management of the farm and the household. Few of 
these would be likely to amuse the general reader; yet 
some are necessary, as specimens of a portion of the au- 
thor's character. Mr. Adams was never a man of large 
fortune. His profession, which had been a source of emol- 
ument, was now entirely taken away from him ; and his 
only dependence for the support of his family was in the 
careful husbanding of the means in actual possession. It is 
not giving to his wife too much credit to affirm, that by her 
prudence through the years of the Revolution, and indeed 
during the whole period when the attention of her husband 
was engrossed by public affairs, she saved him from the 
mortification in his last days, which some of those who have 
been, like him, elevated to the highest situations in the 
country, have, for want of such care, not altogether es- 
caped. / 

In tFe month of November, 1777, Mr. Adams again 
visited his home, and never afterwards rejoined the Con- 
gress ; for that body, in his absence, had elected him to 
perform a duty in a distant land. This was destined to fur- 
nish a severe trial to the fortitude of Mrs. Adams. On the 
25th of October, she had written a letter to him, it being 
, the anniversary of their wedding-day, in which she notices 
M i the fact, that " out of thirteen years of their married life, 
\ three had been passed in a state of separation." Yet in 
^ these years, the distance between them had never been 
very great, and the means of communication almost always 
reasonably speedy and certain. She appears little to have 
anticipated, that in a iew short weeks she was to be de- 
prived of even these compensations, and to send her hus- 
band to a foreign country, over seas covered with the 
enemy's ships. " I very well remember," she says, in an 
earlier letter, " when the eastern circuits of the courts, 

i which lasted a month, were thought an age, and an ab- 
sence of three months, intolerable ; but we are carried from 



MEMOIR. XXXIX 

step to step, and from one degree to another, to endure that 
which first we think insupportable." It was in exact ac- 
cordance with this process, that the separations of half a 
year or more were to be followed by those which lasted 
many years, and the distance from Boston to Philadelphia 
or Baltimore was lengthened to Paris and a different quarter 
of the globe. Upon the reception of the news of his ap- 
pointment as joint commissioner at the court of France, in 
the place of Silas Deane, Mr. Adams lost no time in mak- 
ing his arrangements for the voyage. But it was impossible; 
for him to think of risking his wife and children all at once 
with him in so perilous an enterprise. The frigate Boston, ^ 
a small, and not very good vessel, mounting twenty-eight 
guns, had been ordered to transport him to his destination. 
The British fleet, stationed at Newport, perfectly well knew 
the circumstances under which she was going, and was on 
the watch to favor the new commissioner with a fate simi- 
lar to that afterwards experienced by Mr. Laurens. The 
political attitude of France still remained equivocal. Hence, 
on every account, it seemed advisable that Mr. Adams should 
go upon his mission alone. He left the shores of his native 
town to embark in the frigate, in February, 1778, accom- 
panied only by his eldest son, John Quincy Adams, then a 
boy not eleven years of age. 

It is not often that, even upon that boisterous ocean, a 
voyage combines greater perils of war and of the elements, 
than did this of the Boston. Yet it is by no means un- 
likely, that the lightning which struck the frigate, and the 
winds that nearly sent it to the bottom, were effective instru- 
ments to deter the enemy from a pursuit which threatened 
to end in capture. This is not, however, the place to en- 
large upon this story. It is alluded to only as connected 
with the uneasiness experienced by Mrs. Adams, who was 
left alone to meditate upon the hazard to which her hus- 
band was exposed. Her letter, written not long after the 
sailing of the frigate, distinctly shows her feelings. ^ But 

1 Page 90. 



Xi MEMOIR, 

we find by it, that, to all the causes for anxiety which would 
naturally have occurred to her mind, there was superadded 
one growing out of a rumor then in circulation, that some 
British emissary had made an attempt upon the life of Dr. 
Franklin, whilst acting at Paris in the very commission, of 
which her husband had been made a part. This was a 
kind of apprehension as new as it was distressing ; one too, 
the vague nature of which tended infinitely to multiply those 
terrors that had a better foundation in reality. 

The news of the surrender of General Burgoyne had 
done more to hasten the desired acknowledgment, by 
France, of the independence of the United States, than all 
the efforts which Commissioners could have made. Upon 
his arrival in France, Mr. Adams found the great object of 
his mission accomplished, and himself, consequently, left 
with little or no occupation. He did not wait in Europe to 
know the further wishes of Congress, but returned home in 
August, 1779. Only a brief enjoyment of his society by 
his family was the result, inasmuch as in October he was 
again ordered by Congress to go to Europe, and there to 
wait until Great Britain should manifest an inclination to 
treat with him, and terminate the war. In obedience to 
these directions, he sailed in November on board of the 
French frigate Sensible, taking with him upon this occasion 
his two eldest sons. The day of his embarkation is marked 
by a letter in the present collection, quite touching in its 
character. ^ 

The ordinary occupations of the female sex are neces- 
sarily of a kind which must ever prevent it from partaking 
largely of the action of life. However keenly women may 
think or feel, there is seldom an occasion when the sphere 
of their exertions can with propriety be extended much be- 
yond the domestic hearth or the social circle. Exactly 
here are they to be seen most in their glory. Three or 
i? four years passed whilst Mrs. Adams was living in the 
utmost seclusion of country life, during which, on account 

1 Page 110. 



MEMOIR. Xli 

of the increasing vigilance of British cruisers, she very sel-r 
dom heard from her husband. The material for interesting 
letters was proportionately small, and yet there was no time 
when she was more usefully occupied. It is impossible to 
omit all notice of this period, however deficient it may prove 
in variety. The depreciation of the Continental paper 
money, the difiiculties in the way of managing the property 
of her husband, her own isolation, and the course of public 
events in distant parts of the country, form her constant 
topics. Only a small number of the letters which discuss 
them, yet enough to show her situation at this period, have 
been admitted into this volume. They are remarkable, 
because they display the readiness with which she could 
devote herself to the most opposite duties, and the cheerful 
manner in which she could accommodate herself to the 
difficulties of the times. She is a farmer cultivating the 
land, and discussing the weather and the crops; a merchant 
reporting prices-current and the rates of exchange, and 
directing the making up of invoices ; a politician specu- 
lating upon the probabilities of peace or war ; and a mother 
writing the most exalted sentiments to her son. All of these 
pursuits she adopts together ; some from choice, the rest 
from the necessity of the case ; and in all she appears 
equally well. Yet, among the letters of this period, there 
will be found two or three, which rise in their tone very far 
above the rest, and which can scarcely fail to awaken the 
sympathy of the coldest reader. ^ 

The signature of the Treaty of Peace with Great Britain, 
which fully established the Independence of the United 
States, did not terminate the residence of Mr. Adams in 
Europe. He was ordered by Congress to remain there, 
and, in conjunction with Dr. Franklin and Mr. Jefferson, to 
establish by treaty commercial relations with foreign powers. 
And not Ions; afterwards a new commission was sent him 
as the first representative of the nation to him who had been 
their King. The duties prescribed seemed likely to require 

J Pages 132, 134, 136. 



4 



Xlii MEMOIR. 

a residence sufficiently long to authorize him in a request 
that Mrs. Adams should join him in Europe. After some 
hesitation, she finally consented ; and, in June, 1784, she 
sailed from Boston in a merchant vessel bound to London. 
The journal of her voyage, given in a letter to her sister, 
Mrs. Cranch, makes a part of the present collection.* 
From this date the correspondence assumes a new charac- 
er. Mrs. Adams found herself, at the age of forty, sud- 
denly transplanted into a scene wholly new. From a life 
|of the utmost retirement, in a small and quiet country town 
fof New England, she was at once transferred to the busy 
and bustling scenes of the populous and wealthy cities of 
Europe. Not only was her position novel to herself, but 
there had been nothing like it among her countrywomen. 
She was the first representative of her sex from the United 
States at the Court of Great Britain. The impressions made 
upon her mind were therefore received when it was uncom- 
monly open, and free from the ordinary restraints which an 
established routine of precedents is apt to create. Her re- 
sidence in France during the first year of her European 
experience appears to have been much enjoyed, notwith- 
standing the embarrassment felt by her in not speaking 
the language. That in England, which lasted three years, 
was somewhat affected by the temper of the sovereign. 
George and his Queen could not get over the mortification 
attending the loss of the American Colonies, nor at all times 
suppress the manifestation of it, when the presence of the 
Minister forced the subject on their recollection. Mrs. 
Adams's account of her presentation is among the letters of 
this period.^ It was not more than civilly met on the part 
of the Queen, whose subsequent conduct was hardly so 
good as on that occasion. Mrs. Adams appears never to 
have forgotten it ; for at a much later period, when, in con- 
sequence of the French Revolution, the throne of England 
was thought to be in danger, she writes to her daughter 
with regret at the prospect for the country, but without 

1 Page 157. 2 24 June, 1785. Page 251. 



MEMOIR. xliii 

sympathy for the Queen. " Humiliation for Charlotte," 
she says, " is no sorrow for me. She richly deserves her 
full portion for the contempt and scorn which she took pains 
to discover." Of course, the courtiers followed the lead 
thus given to them, and the impression made against Ame- 
rica at the very outset of its national career has hardly been 
effaced down to this day. It is to be observed, however, 
that one circumstance contributed to operate against the 
situation of the first American minister to Great Britain, 
which has affected none of his successors. This was the 
conduct of the States whilst yet under the Confederation, 
justifying the general impression that they were incapable 
of the self-government, the right to which they had so 
zealously fought to obtain. Of the effect of this upon her- 
self, Mrs. Adams will be found frequently to speak. 

Yet, notwithstanding these drawbacks, she seems to have 
enjoyed her residence in the mother country. Her letters 
to her sisters during this period have been admitted almost 
171 extenso in the present volume. They describe no scenes 
of particular novelty to the reading public, it is true ; but 
they delineate in so natural and easy a manner the impres- 
sions received from objects new to the writer, that it is 
hoped they will fully reward perusal. The period was not 
without its peculiar character to Americans. Their coun- 
try, exhausted by her efforts in the war of Independence, 
had not yet put herself in the way of restoration by adopt- 
ing a good form of government. It was even a matter of 
doubt whether her liberty was likely to prove a blessing, or 
to degenerate into a curse. On the other hand, France, 
Holland, and Great Britain respectively presented an out- 
ward spectacle of wealth and prosperity not perceptibly 
impaired by the violent struggle between them that had just 
terminated. This contrast is frequently marked in the let- 
ters of Mrs. Adams ; but the perception of it does not ap- 
pear to have in any degree qualified the earnestness of her 
attachment to her own very modest home. " Whatever is 
to be the fate of our country," she says to her sister, " we 



xliv 



MEMOIR. 



have determined to come home and share it with you." ^ 
She had very little of that susceptibility of transfer, which 
is a characteristic, not less of the cultivated and wealthy 
class of our countrymen, who cling to the luxury of the old 
world, than of the adventurous and hardy sons of labor, 
who carve out for themselves a new home in the forests of 
the West. 

The return of Mr. Adams, with his family, to the United 
States, the liberty for which was granted by Congress to his 
own request, was simultaneous with the adoption of the 
present Constitution by the decision of the ratifying Con- 
ventions. Upon the organization of the government under 
the new form, he was elected to fill the office of Vice-Pre- 
sident, that of President being, by a more general consent, 
awarded to General Washington. By this arrangement, a 
residence at the seat of government during the sessions of 
the Senate was made necessary ; and, as that was fixed 
first at New York, and then at Philadelphia, Mrs. Adams 
enjoyed an opportunity to mix freely with the society of 
both places. Some of her letters descriptive of it have 
been selected for publication in this collection. 

The voluntary retirement of General Washington, at the 
end of eight years, from the Presidency, was the signal for 
the great struggle between the two political parties, which 
had been rapidly maturing their organization, during his 
term of administration. Mr. Adams was elected his suc- 
cessor by a bare majority of the electoral colleges, and 
against the . inclinations of one section even of that party 
which supported him. The open defection of that section, 
at the following election, turned the scale against him, and 
brought Mr. Jefferson into his place. Of course, the letters 
of Mrs. Adams, at this period, largely partake of the ex- 
citement of the day. From early life, she had learnt to 
take a deep interest in the course of political aiTairs, and it 
is not to be supposed that this would decline, whilst her 
husband was a chief actor in the scene, and a butt for the 

' 25 Febraary, 1787. Page 317. 



MEMOIR. Xlv 

most malignant shafts which party animosity could throw. 
As it is not the design of this publication to revive any old 
disputes, most of these letters have been excluded from it. 
Two or three exceptions, however, have been made. The 
first is the letter of the 8th of February, 1797, the day 
upon which the votes for President were counted, and Mr. 
Adams, as Vice-President, was required by law to announce 
himself the President elect for the ensuing term. This, 
though extremely short, appears to the Editor to be the 
gem of the collection ; for the exalted feeling of the mo- 
ment shines out with all the lustre of ancient patriotism. 
Perhaps there is not, among the whole number of her let- 
ters, one which, in its spirit, brings so strongly to mind, as 
this does, the celebrated Roman lady, whose signature she 
at one lime assumed ; whilst it is chastened by a sentiment 
of Christian humility, of which ancient history furnishes no 
example. 

At this time, the health of Mrs. Adams, which had never 
been very firm, began decidedly to fail. Her residence at 
Philadelphia had not been favorable, as it had subjected her 
to the attack of an intermittent fever, from the effects of 
which she was never afterwards perfectly free. The desire 
to enjoy the bracing air of her native climate, as well as to 
keep together the private property of her husband, upon 
which she early foresaw that he would be obliged to rely 
for their support in their last years, prompted her to reside, 
much of the time, at Quincy. Such was the name now 
given, in honor of her maternal grandfather, to that part of 
the ancient town of Braintree, in which she lived. Yet 
when at the seat of Government, whether in Philadelphia 
or Washington, the influence of her kindly feelings and 
cheerful temper did much to soften the asperities of the 
time. A good idea of the privations and discomforts, to 
which she was subjected in the President's House at Wash- 
ington, when that place had scarcely emerged from the 
primitive forest, may be formed from one or two other let- . 
ters, which, in this view, are excepted from the general ex- 



xlvi MEMOIR^ 

elusion. 1 In the midst of public or private troubles, the 
buoyant spirit of Mrs. Adams never forsook her. " I am a 

i mortal enemy," she writes upon one occasion to her hus- 
v/ band, " to any thing but a cheerful countenance and a 
merry heart, which, Solomon tells us, does good like a 
medicine." This spirit contributed greatly to lift up his 
heart, when surrounded by difficulties and danger, exposed 
to open hostility and secret detraction, and resisting a tor- 
rent of invective, such as it may well be doubted whether 
any other individual in public station in the United States 
has ever tried to stem. It was this spirit, which soothed his 
wounded feelings, when the country, which he had served 

j in the fall consciousness of the perfect honesty of his mo- 
tives, threw him off, and signified its preference for other 
statesmen. There often are, even in this life, more com- 

I peosations for the severest of the troubles that afflict man- 
kind, than we are apt to think. It may be questioned 
whether Mr. Adams's more successful rival, who, in the 
day of his power, wielded popular masses with far greater 
skill and success than he, ever realized, in the hours of his 
subsequent retirement, any consolation for his pecuniary 
embarrassments, like that which Mr. Adams enjoyed from 
the faithful devotedness of his wife, and, it may be added, 
the successful labors of his son. 

There were many persons, in the lifetime of the parties, 
who ascribed to Mrs. Adams a degree of influence over the 
public conduct of her husband, far greater than there was 
any foundation for in truth. Perhaps it is giving more than 
its due importance to this idea to take any notice at all of it 
in this place. But the design of this Memoir is to set forth, 
in as clear a light as possible, the character of its subject ; 
and this cannot well be done without a full explanation of 
V. her personal relations to those about her. That her opinions, 
■ ^ even upon public affairs, had at all times great weight with 
her husband, is unquestionably true, for he frequently 
marked upon her letters his testimony to their solidity ; but 

1 21 and 27 November, 1800. Page 381, et seq. 



MEMOIR. xlvii 

there is no eviden e, that they either originated or mate- ^ 
rially altered any part of the course he had laid out forV 
himself. Whenever she differed in sentiment from him, 
which was sometimes the case, she perfectly well under- 
stood her own position, and that the best way of recom- 
mending her views was by entire concession. The charac- 
ter of Mr. Adams is clearly visible in his own papers. Ar- 
dent, vehement in support of what he believed to be right, 
easily roused to anger by opposition, but sincere, placable, 
and generous, when made conscious of having committed 
the slightest wrong, there is no individual of this time, 
about whom there are so few concealments, of either faults 
or virtues. Instances of his imprudence are visible, and off 
the mode in which his wife treated them, in at least two\ 
letters of this collection. ^ She was certain that a word 
said, not at the moment of irritation, but immediately after 
it had passed, would receive great consideration from him. 
She therefore waited the favorable time, and thus, by the 
calmness of her judgment, exercised a species of negative 
influence, which often prevented evil consequences from V 
momentary indiscretion. But her power extended no far- 
ther, nor did she seek to make it do so, and in this consisted 
her principal merit. Perhaps it may be added, that, to men 
of ardent and excitable temperament, no virtue is more ne- 
cessary in a wife, and none more essential to the happiness 
and prosperity of both the parties, than that which has been 
now described. '^ 

Four letters addressed to Mr. Jefferson in the year 1804 
have been admitted into the present collection for reasons 
which require a particular explanation. The answers writ- 
ten by that gentleman were published some time since in 
the collection of his works made under the authority and 
supervision of his grandson, Mr. Thomas Jefferson Ran- 
dolph, though unaccompanied by any comment which could 
show what it was they replied to or how Mrs. Adams got 
into the rather singular position which she occupies of a 

1 Letters of 18 January, 1785, and 21 November, 1786. Page 226 and 309. 



« 

Xlviii MEMOIR. 

disputant with him upon the leading political questions of 
the time. In order to understand this, it is necessary to go 
back and trace the early relations between them and the 
reasons why those relations were afterwards changed, Mr. 
Jefferson went to Europe nearly at the same time with Mrs. 
Adams. Their residence there was of similar duration, 
though not always in the same place. Throughout the 
period of that residence an active interchange of good 
offices was carried on between them. The official con- 
nexion that existed between Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Adams, 
while the latter remained in France, was improved into a 
pleasant social intimacy. Out of the small circle of 
Americans whom Mrs. Adams met with in that country, 
Mr, Jefferson could hardly fail to prove, as indeed he did, 
by far the most agreeable individual to her. It will hence 
be seen, that upon her departure from Paris, the principal 
regret which she expresses to her friend in America is at 
the necessity of leaving that gentleman — for "he," she 
adds, " is one of the choice ones of the earth," i Again, 
she manifests the confidence which she entertains, both in 
his patriotism and his personal friendship, in a letter written 
to another friend^ after her arrival in London. Her kindly 
feelings were still further developed by the arrival of his 
little daughter from Virginia, and by the care she was re- 
quested by him to take of her during the brief interval 
that elapsed before he could send for her to join him. 
Indeed, so far did they go, that when the moment of de- 
parture took place, the affectionate regret which the child 
manifested at the separation, appears to have left an indelible 
impression upon her mind,^ 

From the incidental notices thus gathered out of Mrs. 
Adams's private correspondence with her friends at home, 
it cannot be doubted, that up to the period of return to 
America of the parties now in question, the most amicable 

1 Letter to Mrs. Shaw, 8 May, 17S5, p. 242, 

2 Letter to Mrs. C ranch, 1 October, 1785, p. 272. 

3 Letter to Mrs. Craiieh, 16 July. 1787, and that to Mr, Jefferson, 20 May, 
1804. Page 326 and p. 389. 



MEMOIR. Xlix 

relations had existed without interruption hetween" them. 
Even after that time, and when, under the administration of 
President Washington, it became certain that a difference 
in political sentiments must inevitably have the effect to 
throw two persons, so distinguished as were Mr. JefTerson 
and Mr. Adams, into collision, the social intimacy between 
them, though relaxed, was not materially disturbed. The 
address of the former gentleman to the Senate, upon taking 
his place as Vice-President, shows the desire he then enter- 
tained to continue it. But events were destined to be 
stronger than men. The vehement contest 4br the Presi- 
dency in 1801 scattered to the winds all traces of former 
friendship. It was at that time that each party in turn 
strove to discover in certain overt acts of the other, a justi- 
fication for estrangement, which would with equal certainty 
have occurred, whether those acts had or had not been in- 
tended to give it a form of expression. It is not in the 
nature of men to be able entirely to resist the force of those 
passions which rivalry in a common object of ardent desire 
will stir up in their bosoms. The earnestness with which 
Mr. Jefferson endeavours to deny their operation upon him, 
whilst every page of his letters shows as clearly as light 
how much sway they had over him, constitutes the most 
serious impeachment that can be brought against his sin- 
cerity. There is an appearance of duplicity in this part of 
his conduct which it is difficult altogether to explain away. 
The writer is not however disposed himself to attach great 
weight to the charge. For the fact can scarcely be doubted, 
that both Mr. Adams and Mr. JefTerson tried, as hard as 
men could do, to resist the natural effect upon them of 
their antagonist positions. They strove, each in turn, to 
stem the prescriptive fury of the parties to which they be- 
longed, and that with equally bad success. But as the 
mode in which they attempted it is singularly illustrative of 
the opposite character of the two men, perhaps it may not 
be without its use to the present generation, to venture upon 
a description of it. 

It is a well attested fact, that Mr. Adams hardly attained 

D 



1 



MEMOIR. 



to the Presidency, before he strove to arrange a mode, by 
which to bring into office some leading individuals of the 
party politically opposed to him, whom he personally es- 
teemed. His offers to Mr. Jefferson, to Mr. Madison and to 
Mr. Gerry, the last of whom only accepted them, are per- 
fectly well known. ^ These offers were not however made 
without prodigious resistance on the part of numbers of his 
own political friends, and probably contributed to weaken 
the attachment of many, and to promote the disaffection of 
more of them. The consequence was his fall from power 
as the penalty^f a disregard to prudent counsels. On the 
other hand, Mr. Jefferson, when elected to the same office, 
though professing much good will towards, and personal 
esteem of his opponent, Mr. Adams, yet candidly admits," 
that he suffered the impulse of his heart to be restrained by 
the decided negative to action interposed on the part of his 
partisan advisers. It is not probable, that, even had he 
carried into effect his proposed design to offer to Mr. Adams 
an office of trust and profit in Massachusetts, this gentle- 
man would have accepted it ; but the offer alone would 
have been invaluable to him at the moment of defeat, as a 
testimonial both to his public and private integrity,, openly 
given by liis successful rival. And it would forever after 
have estopped the friends of the victorious candidate from 
taking an ungenerous advantage of their victory over him. 

But the prudence of Mr. Jefferson then gained the mas- 
tery over his generosity. It went even further — for not 
content with doing nothing at all for his rival, he actually 
inflicted upon him a blow. He removed, without cause 
assigned, his son, John Quincy Adams, from a very subor- 
dinate office, the instant that it happened to come within 
the reach of his reforming power. This was perhaps the 
act that carried with it the most of bitterness to Mr. and 

^ See the " Memoir, Correspondence and Miscellanies from the papers of 
Thomas Jefi'erson, edited by Thomas Jefl'erson Randolph," vol. iv. p. 501^ 
for the facts, without regard to the inferences arbitrarily drawn by Mr. Jef- 
ferson himself 

2 See the " Memoir, Correspondence and Miscellanies, from the papers of 
Thomas Jeflerson — edited by Thomas Jefl'erson Randolph." Vol. iv. p. 158. 



MEMOIR. li 

Mrs. Adams. It is no more than due to the author of it to 
add his explanation. He solemnly affirms that he made 
the removal without knowing whom he was removing. 
And weakening the force of that argument by betraying 
his sense of the necessity of another, he maintains, in fur- 
ther extenuation, that the law which changed the form of 
the office had at the same time vacated it. Hence that, 
when he exercised his freshly-acquired power of appoint- 
ment in favor of another person, he did not remove Mr. 
Adams. Perhaps the great majority of readers will agree 
with the writer in thinking less unfavorably of the deed 
itself, than of the apology it was thought advisable to make 
for it. 

For after all, it can never be any great impeachment of 
Mr. Jefferson to say that he attempted no serious opposition 
to the party torrent that bore him into power ; a torrent 
which must always have its course in the United States, let 
who will endeavour to resist it. He knew the effort would 
be futile, and could be executed only to his own destruc- 
tion. The true ground of exception against him is, that 
seeing and feeling the necessity of submission, he did not 
yield to it at once with frankness. Considering the very 
high regard which he continued to profess towards his rival, 
and which there is no doubt he felt when his interests were 
not so deeply involved as to tempt him to suppress it, it 
would seem as if he was under some responsibility for the 
odium which it was in his day, and still is the pleasure of 
his political disciples, very unjustly to cast upon Mr. Adams. 
There were, doubtless, great and radical differences of 
opinion upon abstract questions in the theory of govern- 
ment, between the two gentlemen. And the soundness of 
their respective notions, as Mr. Jefferson truly remarks, yet 
remains to be tested by the passage of time and the world's 
experience. In the mean while, however, there is no more 
reason for condemning the one party on account of his 
opinions than the other. Yet, notwithstanding the frequent 
admission of this truth in his private letters, it can scarcely 
be denied, that Mr. Jefferson drew, during his public life^ 



lii MEMOIR. 

every possible advantage from the prevalence of a wholly 
opposite conviction in the popular mind. A very large 
number of the citizens of the Union were impressed not 
simply with a dislike of the sentiments of Mr. Adams, but 
with a conviction that our republican institutions were in 
danger from their predominance in his person. This convic- 
tion, which was never entertained by Mr. Jeiferson, a few 
words inserted in any document, designed to be puhlic, and 
from his own hand when President, would have gone very 
far to dispel. He never chose to give this form of utter- 
ance to them. It consequently happened, that whilst he 
could affirm that in private, " none ever misrepresented 
Mr. Adams in his presence without his asserting his just 
character," his official conduct and the tone of all his politi- 
cal friends, was constantly giving a sanction to the grossest 
and most unequivocal misrepresentations of him. And 
whilst he was professing in secret a wish to give him an 
honorable office, his party was studiously making his very 
name a word of fear to all the less intelligent classes of the 
community. This inconsistency may have been, it is true, 
a consequence not so much of the will of Mr. Jefferson as 
of the necessity in which he was placed. Much allowance 
must often be made for the difficult positions of our public 
statesmen. He is also entitled to much credit for his volun- 
tary efforts, in after life, to repair the injury he must have 
been aware he had committed. This conduct, on his part, 
was not without a degree of magnanimity, which may have 
its use, as an example to future political rivals in America. 
There will doubtless be many instances in our history, in 
which the victor in party strife will have gained much by 
■fomenting popular prejudices against his opponent ; but it is 
not equally certain, that there will be as many, in which he 
will afterwards endeavour to repair the injury done, by 
leaving behind him upon record the amplest testimonials to 
that opponent's public virtue. Yet, after making all the 
concessions which his warmest friends can with any show 
of justice demand in his favour, the inconsistency here 
pointed out must remain as a blemish upon his character. 



MEMOIR. liii 

It is by no means the disposition of the present writer to 
judge with an undue degree of harshness. But no duty- 
appears to him more absolutely incumbent upon all who 
address the American public than that of exercising the 
faculty of clear, moral discrimination, and he should have 
felt himself deserving of censure if he had omitted to at- 
tempt it to this extent upon the present occasion. 

Mrs. Adams felt, as women only feel, what she regarded 
as the ungenerous conduct of Mr. Jefferson towards her 
husband during the latter part of his public life. And 
when she retired from Washington, notwithstanding the 
kindest professions from his mouth were yet ringing in her 
ears, all communication between the parties ceased. Still, 
on both sides there remained pleasant reminiscences to 
soften the irritation that had taken place, and to open a way 
for reconciliation whenever circumstances should present a 
suitable opportunity. The little daughter of Mr. Jefferson, 
in whom Mrs. Adams had taken so much interest in 1787, 
had in the interval grown into a woman, and had been mar- 
ried to Mr. Eppes, of Virginia. Her death took place in 
1804. The news of that event revived all the kind feelings 
that had long been smothered in the breast of Mrs. Adams, 
and impelled her, almost against her judgment, to pen the 
short letter of condolence to the lady's father which makes 
the first of the series now submitted to the public. Mr. Jef- 
ferson appears to have been much affected by this testimony 
of her sympathy. He replied, but not confining himself to 
the subject matter of her letter, he added a request to know 
her reasons for the estrancrement that had occurred. These 
reasons were given in the letters that follow, now and then 
betraying a little of the asperity to which the contest had 
given birth on each side. The correspondence ended whh- 
out entire satisfaction to either. It appears, from Mr. Jef- 
ferson's statement, afterwards made in a letter to Dr. Rush, 
that he did not choose at first to believe Mrs. Adams's asser- 
tion that she had written to him without the knowledge of 
her husband. It further appears, that without any new evi- 
dence upon which to found a change of opinion, he after- 



liv MEMOIK. 

wards convinced himself that what she had written was 
true. Fortunately, the original endorsement, made in the 
handwriting of Mr. Adams, upon the copy of the last of the 
letters retained by herself, will serve to put this matter be- 
yond question. Readers will be apt to judge of the reason- 
ing contained in the correspondence, according to their pre- 
dilections in politics. But whichsoever way they may in- 
cline, one thing they will all be glad to know, and of that 
they may be assured, that the argument of Mrs. Adams 
was entirely her own. If it were not for this certainty, a 
great deduction would be necessary from the interest that 
must now be felt in her part of the correspondence. As 
the letters of a man, trained in the discipline and the logic 
of the schools, they would make but a poor figure against 
the plausible and adroit special pleading of the opposing 
party ; but when viewed as the simple offspring of good 
sense and right feeling, combining in a woman to form just 
as well as straight-forward conclusions upon the most diffi- 
cult public questions, they are not without their value, even 
though set in contrast with the polished productions of a 
writer so celebrated as Mr. Jefferson. 

It has been already remarked, that the correspondence 
ended without appearing to produce any favourable effect 
in restoring the parties to their pristine cordiality. The 
principal reason for this probably was, that Mr. Jefferson 
was still President of the United States ; and that a change 
then brought about in consequence of a step first taken by 
Mrs. Adams, might have subjected her conduct to the possi- 
bility of misconstruction. This her spirit would never have 
willingly submitted to. Perhaps the same consideration 
had its effect upon the general tone of her letters, which is 
not so conciliatory, as from other parts of her character, 
one might be led to expect. It was felt to be not so by Mr. 
Jefferson, who considered it as having interposed a new 
barrier to reconciliation, rather than as having removed the 
old ones. But such did not prove its ultimate effect. The 
parties relapsed into silence for a time, it is true, but there 
is evidence that they began again to think kindly of each 



MEMOIR. Iv 

other. And when they had come once more upon equal 
terms, by the retirement of Mr. Jefferson from public life, 
Dr. Rush, a common friend, found no great difficulty in re- 
moving all obstacles to a renewed communication. A cor- 
respondence was again established which gradually im- 
proved into something of the ancient kindliness. But Mrs. 
Adams appears to have taken no part in it ; and it may be 
doubted whether it was before the beautiful letter^ of con- 
dolence, written to him by Mr. Jefferson upon the news of 
her decease, that the heart of Mr. Adams softened into per- 
fect cordiality towards his ancient and his successful oppo- 
nent. 

From the year 1801 down to the day of her death, which 
happened on the 28th of October, 1818, she remained unin- 
terruptedly at home in Quincy. This period furnishes 
abundance of familiar letters. Her interest in public affairs 
did not cease with the retirement of her husband. She 
continued to write to her friends her free opinions, both of 
men and measures, perhaps with a more sustained hand on 
account of the share her son was then taking in politics. 
But these letters bring us down to times so recent, and they 
contain so many allusions to existing persons and matters of 
a domestic and wholly private nature, that they are not 
deemed suitable for publication, at least at present. On 
some accounts, this is perhaps to be regretted. None of 
her letters present a more agreeable picture of life, or a 
more characteristic idea of their author, than these. The 
old age of Mrs. Adams was not one of grief and repining, 
of clouds and darkness. Her cheerfulness continued, with 
the full possession of her faculties, to the last ; and her 
sunny spirit enlivened the small social circle around her, 
brightened the solitary hours of her husband, and spread 
the influence of its example over the town where she lived. 
" Yesterday," she writes to a grand-daughter on the 26th of 

' Perhaps there is not, among all the productions of Mr. Jefferson, a more 
graceful and delicate specimen of his style than this short letter. As con- 
nected with the present subject, it may not be unacceptable to the reader to 
find it appended to the close of tliis Memoir. 



1 



Ivi MEMOIR. 

October, 1814, " yesterday completes half a century since 
I entered the married state, then just your age. I have 
great cause of thankfulness, that I have lived so long, and 
enjoyed so large a portion of happiness as has been my lot. 
The greatest source of unhappiness I have known in that 
period has arisen from the lorig and cruel separations, 
which I was called, in a time of war and with a young 
family around me, to submit to." Yet she had not been 
y without her domestic afflictions. A daughter lost in in- 
fancy ; a son grown up to manhood, who died in 1800 ; 
and thirteen years afterwards, the death of her only re- 
iinaining daughter, the wife of Colonel W. S. Smith, fur- 
nished causes of deep and severe grief, which threw a 
shadow of sadness over the evening of her life. But they 
produced no permanent gloom, nor did they prevent her 
from enjoying the consolations to be found in gratitude to 
the Divine Being for the blessings that still remained to her. 
She was rewarded for the painful separation from her eldest 
son, when he went abroad in the public service under cir- 
cumstances which threatened a long absence, by surviving 
the eight years that it lasted, and by witnessing his return 
to receive from the Chief Magistrate elect, Mr. Monroe, the 
highest testimony he could give him of his confidence. 
This was the fulfilment of the wish nearest to her heart. 
The letters addressed to him when a youth, which have 
been admitted into this volume, will abundantly show the 
deep interest she had felt in his success. His nomination 
as Secretary of State was the crowning mercy of her life. 
Had she survived the attack of the fever which proved fatal, 
it is true that she might have seen him exalted still higher, 
to that station which her husband and his father had held 
before him ; but it is very doubtful whether her satisfaction 
would have been at all enhanced. The commencement of 
Mr. Monroe's administration was marked by a unanimity of 
the popular voice, the more gratifying to her because it 
was something so new. Later times have only carried us 
back to party divisions, of the bitterness of which she had 
during her lifetime tasted too largely to relish even the 
little of sweet which they might have to give. 



MEMOIR. Ivii 

The obsequies of Mrs. Adams were attended by a great 
concourse of people, who voluntarily came to pay this last 
tribute to her memory. The Reverend Mr. Whitney, the 
worthy pastor of the parish where she had in her lifetime 
regularly worshipped, made her character the subject of 
appropriate eulogy. Several brief but beautiful notices of 
her appeared in the newspapers of the day, and a sermon 
was preached by the late Reverend Dr. Kirkland, then Presi- 
dent of Harvard University, which closed with a delicate 
and affecting testimony to her worth. " Ye will seek to 
mourn, bereaved friends," it says, " as becomes Christians, 
in a manner worthy of the person you lament. You do, 
then, bless the Giver of life, that the course of your endeared 
and honored friend was so long and so bright ; that she en- 
tered so fully into the spirit of those injunctions which we { 
have explained, and was a minister of blessings to all within 
her influence. You are soothed to reflect, that she was sen- * 
sible of the many tokens of divine goodness which marked 
her lot ; that she received the good of her existence with a 
cheerful and grateful heart ; that, when called to weep, she 
bore adversity with an equal mind ; that she used the world 
as not abusing it to excess, improving well her time, talents, 
and opportunities, and, though desired longer in this world, 
was fitted for a better happiness than this world can give." 

It often happens, when the life of a woman is the topic of 
discussion, that men think it necessary either to fall into a 
tone of affected gallantry and unmeaning compliment, or to 
assume the extreme of unnatural and extravagant eulogy. 
Yet there seems no reason, in the nature of things, why the 
same laws of composition should not be made to apply to 
the one sex as to the other. It has been the wish of the 
Editor to avoid whatever might be considered as mere empty 
praise of his subject, in which, if he has not altogether suc- 
ceeded, some allowance may, it is hoped, be made for the 
natural bias under which he writes. It has been his purpose 
to keep far within the line marked out by the great master 
of composition, who, in allusion to the first instance in Rome 
when a woman, Popilia, was publicly praised by her son 



; 



Iviii MEMOIR. 

Catulus, defines the topics which may be treated with pro- 
priety upon any similar occasion. ^ He does not claim for 
the letters now published to the world, that they are models 
of style, though in behalf of some of them such a claim 
might, perhaps, be reasonably urged ; nor yet that they con- 
tain much novel or important historical information. What 
merit they may have will be found in the pictures of social 
life which they present, during a period daily becoming more 
interesting as it recedes from us, and in the high moral and 
religious tone which uniformly pervades them. They are 
here given to the public exactly as they were written, with 
only those corrections or omissions which were absolutely 
necessary either to perfect the sense, or to avoid subjects 
exclusively personal. It was the habit of the writer to make 
first a rough draft of what she intended to say, and from this 
to form a fair copy for her correspondent ; but in the pro- 
cess she altered so much of the original, that, in every 
instance where the two have been compared, they are by 
no means the same thing. Only in one or two cases, and 
for particular reasons, has the loss of the real letter been 
supplied by the first draft. The principal difference between 
them ordinarily is, that the former is much the most full. 
Frequently, it will be seen that she did not copy, the task 
being extremely irksome to her. 

The value attached by some of her correspondents to her 
letters, was, even in her lifetime, so considerable, that it 
produced from one of them, the late Judge Vanderkemp of 

^ " Ex his enim fontibus, unde omnia ornate dicehdi praecepta sumuntur, 
licebit etiam laudationeni ornare, neque ilia elementa desiderare ; qufe ut 
nemo tradat, quis est, qui nesciat, quae sint in homine laudanda ? Positis 
enim iis rebus, quas Crassus in illius orationis sure, quam contra coUegam 
censor habuit, principio dixit ; ' Quae natura aut fortuna darentur hominibus, 
in iis rebiis, se vinci posse animo cequo jjati : qiice ij)si sihi homines par are 
possent, in iis rebtis se pati vinci non posse ; ' qui laudabit quempiam, intel- 
liget, exponenda sibi esse fortunae bona. Ea sunt, generis, pecunifE, propin- 
quorum, amicorum, opum, valetudinis, formae, viriurn, ingenii, cseterarumque 
rerum, quse sunt aut corporis, aut extraneee : si habuerit, bene his usum : si 
non habuerit, sapienter caruisse : si amiserit, moderate tulisse. Deinde, quid 
sapienter is, quem laudet, quid liberaliter, quid fortiter, quid juste, quid mag- 
niiice, quid pie, quid grate, quid hmnaniter, quid denique cum aliqua virtute, 
aut fecerit aut tiderit." — Cicero, de Oratore, II. 11. 



MEMOIR. lix 

New York, a request that a collection should then be made 
for publication. In allusion to this, Mrs. Adams writes in a 
note to a female friend ; 

" The President has a letter from Vanderkemp, in which 
he proposes to have him send a collection of my letters tcL 
publish ! A pretty figure I should make. No. No. I 
have not any ambition to appear in print. Heedless and[ 
inaccurate as I am, I have too much vanity to risk my repu-, 
tation before the public." ' 

And, on the same day, she replied to Judge Vanderkemp 
as follows ; 

" Quincy, 24 January, 1818. 
•'my dear sip., 

" When President Monroe was in Boston, upon his late tour, 
encompassed by citizens, surrounded by the military, ha- 
rassed by invitations to parties, and applications innumerable 
for office, some gentleman asked him if he was not com- 
pletely worn out .^ To which he replied, ' O no. A little 
flattery will support a man through great fatigue.' I may 
apply the observation to myself and say, that the flattery in 
your letter leads me to break through the aversion, which is 
daily increasing upon me, to writing. 

" You terrify me, my dear Sir, when you ask for letters r 
of mine to publish. It is true, that Dr. Disney, to whom ) 
the late Mr. Hollis bequeathed his property, found amongst 
his papers some letters from the President and from me, 1 
which he asked permission to publish. We had both for- ^ 
gotten the contents of them, but left them to his judgment 
to do with them as he pleased, and accordingly he published 
some of them. One other letter to my son, when he first 
went to France in the year 1778, by some means or other, 
was published in an English Magazine ; and those, I believe, 
are all the mighty works of mine, which ever have, or will, 
by my consent, appear before the public. Style I never 
studied. My language is 

' Warm from the hearty and faithful to its fires,' 



Ix MEMOIR. 

the spontaneous effusions of friendship. As such I tender 
them to Mr. Vanderkemp, sure of his indulgence, since I 
make no pretensions to the character which he professes to 
fear, that of a learned lady." 

These observations are strictly true. To learning, in the 
ordinary sense of that term, Mrs. Adams could make no 
claim. Her reading had been extensive in the lighter de- 
partments of literature, and she was well acquainted with 
the poets in her own language ; but it went no further. It 
is the soul, shining through the words, that gives to them 
their great attraction ; the spirit, ever equal to the occasion, 
whether a great or a small one ; — a spirit, inquisitive and 
earnest in the little details of life, as when she was in France 
and England; playful, when she describes daily duties ;* 
but rising to the call, when the roar of cannon is in her 
ears, 2 — or when she reproves her husband for not knowing 
her better than to think her a coward and to fear telling her 
bad news, 3 — or when she warns her son, that she " would 
rather he had found his grave in the ocean, or that any un- 
timely death should crop him in his infant years, than see 
him an immoral, profligate, or graceless child." * 

In conclusion, the Editor desires to express his gratitude 
to man)'- individuals who have most cheerfully and unre- 
servedly offered to him the use of letters from which this 
collection has been made. Among those persons, he would 
particularly define his obligations to Mrs. John Greenleaf, 
of Quincy, and Mrs. Felt, of Boston, respectively, daugh- 
ters of the two sisters of Mrs. Adams ; also to Mr. Norton, 
the son of another daughter ; Mrs. C. A. De Wint, of Fish- 
kill, New York, the daughter of Mrs. W. S. Smith ; the 
family of Mrs. Warren, of Plymouth; Mrs. Hammatt, the 
daughter of Mrs. Gushing ; and Mrs. and Miss Quincy. 
These are the sources from which have been drawn all the 
niate rials for the volume, not in the possession of his imme- 
diate relatives, or in his own. 

1 Letter, 19 November, 1812. 2 Pages 67-70. 

3 Page 81. 4 Page 96. 



MEMOIR. Ixi 

It was the fortune of the Editor to know the subject of/ 
his Memoir only during the last year of her life, and when 
he was too young fully to comprehend the worth of her 
character ; but it will be a source of unceasing gratification / 
to him, that he has been permitted to pay this tribute, how- 
ever inadequate, to her memory. 



J 



NOTE. 



Tlie following letter is the one alluded to in the Note to page Iv of thi» 
Memoir. 



THOMAS JEFFERSON TO JOHN ADAMS, 

Monticello, 13 Novemberj 1818. 

The public papers, my dear friend, announce the fatal event of 
which your letter of October the 20th had given me ominous fore- 
boding. Tried myself in the school of affliction, by the loss of 
every form of connexion which can rive the human heart, I know 
well, and feel what you have lost, what you have suffered, are 
suffering, and have yet to endure. The same trials have taught 
me, that for ills so immeasurable, time and silence are the only 
medicine. I will not therefore, by useless condolences, open afresh 
the sluices of your grief, nor, altfhough mingling sincerely my tears 
with yours, will I say a word more where words are vain ; but that 
it is of some comfort to us both, that the term is not very distant, 
at which we are to deposit in the same cerement our sorrows and 
suffering bodies, and to ascend in essence to an ecstatic meeting 
with the friends we have loved and lost, and whom we shall still 
love and never lose again. 

God bless you and support you under your heavy affliction. 

Th : Jefferson. 











^ 






si 








CN 



r^ 






LETTERS. 



LETTERS. 



TO MRS. H. LINCOLN.* 

Weymouth, 5 October, 1761. V 



MY DEAR FRIEND, 



Does not my friend think me a stupid girl, when she has 
kindly offered to correspond with me, that I should be so 
senseless as not to accept the offer ? Senseless and stupid 
I would confess myself, and that to the greatest degree, if 
I did not foresee the many advantages I shall receive from 
corresponding with a lady of your known prudence and 
understanding. 

I gratefully accept your offer ; although I may be charged 
with vanity in pretending to entertain you with my scrawls ; 
yet I know your generosity is such, that, like a kind parent, 
you will bury in oblivion all my imperfections. I do not 
aim at entertaining. I write merely for the instruction and 
edification which I shall receive, provided you honor me 
with your correspondence. 

Your letter I received, and believe me, it has not been 
through forgetfulness, that I have not before this time re- 
turned you my sincere thanks for the kind assurance you 

1 For tliis early letter the Editor is indebted to the kindness of Miss E. S. 
Quiiicy, a grand-niece of the lady to whom it was addressed. After the 
death of lier first husband Mrs. Lincoln was married to Ebenezer Storer, Esq., 
of Boston, and died only a few years ago. 



4 LETTERS. 

then gave me of continued friendship. You have, I hope, 
pardoned my suspicions ; they arose from love. What 
persons in their right senses would calmly, and without 
repining or even inquiring into the cause, submit to lose their 
greatest temporal good and happiness ? for thus the divine 
Dr. Young, looks upon a true friend, when he says, 

" A friend is worth all hazards we can run. 
Poor is the friendless master of a world ; 
A world in purchase for a friend is gain." 

Who, that has once been favored with your friendship, can 
be satisfied with the least diminution of it ? Not those who 
value it according to its worth. 

You have, like king Ahasuerus, held forth, though not a 
golden sceptre, yet one more valuable, the sceptre of friend- 
ship, if I may so call it. Like Esther, I would draw nigh 
and touch it. Will you proceed and say, " What wilt thou ? " 
and " What is thy request .-" it shall be even given thee to 
the half of my heart." Why, no. I think I will not have 
so dangerous a present, lest your good man should find it 
out and challenge me ; but, if you please, I '11 have a place 
in one corner of it, a place well guarded and fortified, or 
still I shall fear being jostled out by him. Now do not deny 
my request on purpose to make me feel the weight of your 
observation, " that we are often disappointed when we set 
our minds upon that which is to yield us great happiness." 
I know it too well already. Daily experience teaches me 
that truth. 

And now let me ask you, my friend, whether you do not 
think, that many of our disappointments and much of our 
unhappiness arise from our forming false notions of things 
and persons. We strangely impose upon ourselves ; we 
create a fairy land of happiness. Fancy is fruitful and 
promises fair, but, like the dog in the fable, we catch at a 
shadow, and when we find the disappointment, we are vexed, 
not with ourselves, who are really the impostors, but with 
the poor, innocent thing or person of whom we have formed 
such strange ideas. When this is the case, I believe we 



LETTERS. 5 

always find, that we have enjoyed more pleasure in the an- 
ticipation than in the real enjoyment of our wishes. 

Dr. Young says, " Our wishes give us not our wishes." 
Some disappointments are, indeed, more grievous than others. 
Since they are our lot, let us bear them with patience. 
That person that cannot bear a disappointment, must not 
live in a world so changeable as this, and 't is wise it should 
be so ; for, were we to enjoy a continual prosperity, we 
should be too firmly attached to the world ever to think of 
quitting it, and there would be room to fear, that we should 
be so far intoxicated with prosperity as to swim smoothly 
from joy to joy, along life's short current, wholly unmindful 
of the vast ocean. Eternity. 

If I did not know that it would be adding to the length 
of my letter, I might make some excuse for it ; but that 
and another reason will hinder me. 

You bid me tell one of my sparks ( I think that was th 
word) to bring me to see you. Why ! I believe you thin 
they are as plenty as herrings, when, alas ! there is as great 
a scarcity of them as there is of justice, honesty, prudence, 
and many other virtues. I 've no pretensions to one.' 
Wealth, wealth is the only thing that is looked after now. 
'T is said Plato thought, if Virtue would appear to the 
world, all mankind would be enamoured with her, but now 
interest governs the world and men neglect the golden 
mean. 

But, to be sober, I should really rejoice to come and see 
you, but if I wait till I get a (what did you call 'em ?) I 
fear you'll be blind with age. 

I can say, in the length of this epistle, I 've made the 
golden rule mine. Pray, my friend, do not let it be long 
before you write to your ever affectionate 

A. fe. 

P. S. My regards to your good man. I 've no acquaint- 
ance with him, but if you love him, I do, and should be 
glad to see him. 




LETTERS. 



TO JOHN ADAMS. 

Thursday Eve. Weymouth, 19 April, 1764. 

Why, my good man, thou hast the curiosity of a girl. Who 
could have believed, that only a slight hint would have set 
thy imagination agog in such a manner. And a fine encour- 
agement I have to unravel the mystery as thou callest it. 
Nothing less, truly, than to be told something to my disad- 
vantage. What an excellent reward that will be ! In what 
court of justice didst thou learn that equity ? I thank thee, 
friend ; such knowledge as that is easy enough to be ob- 
tained without paying for it. As to the insinuation, it doth 
not give me any uneasiness ; for, if it is any thing very bad, 
I know thou dost not believe it. I am not conscious of any 
harm that I have done or wished to any mortal. I bear no 
malice to any being. To my enemies, if any I have, I am 
willing to afford assistance ; therefore towards man I main- 
tain a conscience void of offence. 

Yet by this I mean not that I am faultless. But tell me 
what is the reason, that persons would rather acknowledge 
themselves guilty than be accused by others ? Is it because 
they are more tender of themselves, or because they meet 
with more favor from others when they ingenuously con- 
fess ? Let that be as it will, there is something which 
makes it more as-reeable to condemn ourselves than to be 
condemned by others. 

But, although it is vastly disagreeable to be accused of 
faults, yet no person ought to be offended when such accu- 
sations are delivered in the spirit of friendship. I now call 
upon you to fulfil your promise, and tell me all my faults 
both of omission and commission, and all the evil you either 
know or think of me. Be to me a second conscience, nor 
put me off to a more convenient season. There can be no 
time more proper than the present. It will be harder to 
erase them when habit has streng-thened and confirmed 
them. Do not think I trifle. These are really meant 



LETTERS. 7 

as words of truth and soberness. For the present, good 
night. 

Friday Morning, April 20th. 'i^*j 

What does it signify ? Why may not I visit you days as 
well as nights ? I no sooner close my eyes, than some 
invisible being, swift as the Alborack of Mahomet, bears 
me to you, — I see you, but cannot make myself visible to 
you. That tortures me, but it is still worse when I do not 
come, for I am then haunted by half a dozen ugly sprites. 
One will catch me and leap into the sea ; another will carry 
me up a precipice like that which Edgar describes in Lear, 
then toss me down, and, were I not then light as the gossa- 
mer, I should shiver into atoms ; another will be pouring 
down my throat stuff worse than the witches' broth in Mac- 
beth. Where I shall be carried next I know not, but I would 
rather have the smallpox by inoculation half a dozen times 
than be sprited about as I am. What say you ? Can you 
give me any encouragement to come } By the time you 
receive this I hope from experience you will be able to say. 
that the distemper is but a trifle. Think you I would nol 
endure a trifle for the pleasure of seeing you? Yes, were, 
it ten times that trifle, I would. But my own inclinations 
must not be followed, — to duty I sacrifice them. Yet, O 
my mamma, forgive me if I say, you have forgot or never 
knew but hush, and do you excuse me that some- 
thing I promised you, since it was a speech more undutiful 
than that which I just now stopped myself in. For the 
present, good bye. 

Friday evening. ^ 

I hope you smoke your letters well, before you deliver 
them. Mamma is so fearful lest I should catch the distem- 
per, that she hardly ever thinks the letters are sufficiently 
purified. Did you never rob a bird's nest? Do you 
remember how the poor bird would fly round and round, 



'<)> 



u 



8 LETTERS. 

fearful to come nigh, yet not know how to leave the 
place ? Just so they say I hover round Tom, whilst he is 
smoking my letters. 

But heyday, Mr. What' s your name, who taught you to 
threaten so vehemently ? " A character besides that of a 
critic, in which if I never did, I always hereafter shall fear 
you." Thou canst not prove a villain, impossible, — I, 
therefore, still insist upon it, that I neither do nor can fear 
thee. For my part, I know not that there is any pleasure 
in being feared; but, if there is, I hope you will be so 
generous as to fear your Diana, that she may at least be 
made sensible of the pleasure. Mr. Ayers will bring you 
this letter and the lag. Do not repine, — it is filled with 
balm. 

Here is love, respects, regards, good wishes — a whole 
(wagon load of them, sent you from all the good folks in the 
neighborhood. 

/ To-morrow makes the fourteenth day. How many more 

V are to come ? I dare not trust myself with the thought. 

I Adieu. Let me hear from you by Mr. Ayers, and excuse 

■ this very bad writing ; if you had mended my pen it would 

have been better. Once more, adieu. Gold and silver 

jhave I none, but such as I have give I unto thee, — which 

is the affectionate regard of your A. S. 



TO JOHN ADAMS. 
Weymouth, Sunday Evening, 14 September, 1767. • 

MY DEAREST FRIEND, 

The Doctor talks of setting out to-morrow for New Brain- 
tree. I did not know but that he might chance to see you 
in his way there. I know from the tender affection you 
bear me and our little ones, that you will rejoice to hear that 
we are well. Our son is much better than when you left 



LETTERS. 



home, and our daughter rocks him to sleep with the song of 
"Come, papa, come home to brother Johnny." Sunday"! 
seems a more lonely day to me than any otlier when you/ ^ 
are absent ; for, though I may be compared to those climates 
which are deprived of the sun half the year, yet upon a| 
Sunday you commonly afforded us your benign influence. 
I am now at Weymouth, my father brought me here last 
night ; to-morrow I return home, where I hope soon to, / 
receive the dearest of friends, and the tenderest of hus-lv 
bands, with that unabated affection which has for years past, I 
and will whilst the vital spark lasts, burn in the bosom of 
your affectionate A, Adams. 



TO MES. WARREN.* 

Boston, 5 December, 1773. 

MY DEAR MRS. WAREEN, 

Do not, my worthy friend, tax me with either breach of 
promise or neglect towards you ; the only reason why 1 did 
not write to you immediately upon your leaving town 
was my being seized with a fever, which has confined me 
almost ever since. I have not for these many years known 
so severe a fit of sickness. I am now, through the favor 
of Heaven, so far returned as to be able to leave my cham- 
ber some part of the day. I will not make any other 
apology for my past neglect, being fully sensible that I 
alone have been the sufferer. My pen, which I once loved 
and delighted in, has for a long time been out of credit 
with me. Could I borrow the powers and faculties of my 
much valued friend, I should then hope to use it with 
advantage to myself and delight to others. Incorrect and 
unpolished as it is, I will not suffer a mistaken pride so far to 
lead me astray as to omit the present opportunity of improve- 

1 Mrs. Mercy Warren, the wife of General James Warren, of Plymouth, 
and the sister of James Otis. 



10 LETTERS. 

ment. And should I prove a tractable scholar, you will 
not find me tardy. 

You, madam, are so sincere a lover of your country, and 
so hearty a mourner in all her misfortunes, that it will 
greatly aggravate your anxiety to hear how much she is 
now oppressed and insulted. To you, who have so thor- 
oughly looked through the deeds of men, and developed the 
dark designs of a rapacious soul, no action however base or 
sordid, no measure however cruel and villanous, will be 
matter of any surprise. 

The tea, that baneful weed, is arrived. Great and I hope, 
effectual opposition has been made to the landing of it. To 
the public papers I must refer you for particulars. You will 
there find that the proceedings of our citizens have been 
united, spirited and firm. The flame is kindled, and like 
lightning it catches from soul to soul. Great will be the 
devastation, if not timely quenched or allayed by some 
more lenient measures. Although the mind is shocked at 
the thought of shedding human blood, more especially the 
blood of our countrymen, and a civil war is of all wars the 
most dreadful, such is the present spirit that prevails, that 
if once they are made desperate, many, very many of our 
heroes will spend their lives in the cause, with the speech 
of Cato in their mouths. 

Such is the present situation of affairs, that I tremble 
when I think what may be the direful consequences, and in 
this town must the scene of action lie. My heart beats at 
every whistle I hear, and I dare not express half my fears. 
Eternal reproach and ignominy be the portion of all those 
who have been instrumental in bringing those fears upon 
me. There has prevailed a report that to-morrow there 
will be an attempt to land this weed of slavery. I will then 
write further. Till then, my worthy friend, adieu. 

11 December. 

Since I wrote the above, a whole week has elapsed and 
nothing new occurred concerning the tea. Having met 
with no opportunity of sending this, I shall trespass further 



LETTERS. 11 

upon your patience. I send with this the first volume of 
Moliere, and should be glad of your opinion of the plays. 
I cannot be brought to like them. There seems to me to\ 
be a general want of spirit. At the close of every one, 1 1 
have felt disappointed. There are no characters but what . 
appear unfinished ; and he seems to have ridiculed vice / 
without engaging us to virtue. And though he sometimes 
makes us laugh, yet 'tis a smile of indignation. There is 
one negative virtue of which he is possessed, I mean that 
of decency. His cit turned gentleman, among many others, 
has met with approbation. Though I can readily acknow- 
ledge that the cit, by acting so contrary to his real character, 
has displayed a stupid vanity justly deserving ridicule, yet 
the fine gentleman who defrauds and tricks him is as much 
the baser character as his advantages are superior to the 
other's. Moliere is said to have been an honest man, bud 
sure he has not copied from his own heart. Though hel 
has drawn many pictures of real life, yet all pictures ofi 
life are not fit to be exhibited upon the stage. I fear I shall 
incur the charge of vanity by thus criticising an author 
who has met with so much applause. You, madam, I hope 
will forgive me. I should not have done it, if we had not 
conversed about it before. Your judgment will have great 
weight with 

Your sincere friend, 

Abigail Adams. 



TO JOHN ADAMS. 

Braintree, 19 August, 1774. 

The great distance between us makes the time appear very^ 
long to me. It seems already a month since you left me. ^ 
The great anxiety 1 feel for my country, for you, and for 
our family, renders the day tedious, and the night unpleas- 
ant. The rocks and quicksands appear upon every side. 
What course you can or will take is all wrapped in the- 



12 LETTERS. 

bosom of futurity. Uncertainty and expectation leave the 
mind great scope. Did ever any kingdom or state regain 
its liberty, when once it was invaded, without bloodshed ? 
I cannot think of it without horror. Yet we are told, that 
all the misfortunes of Sparta were occasioned by their too 
great solicitude for present tranquillity, and, from an exces- 
sive love of peace, they neglected the means of making it 
sure and lasting. They ought to have reflected, says Poly- 
bius, that, " as there is nothing more desirable or advan- 
tageous than peace, when founded in justice and honor, 
so there is nothing more shameful, and at the same 
time more pernicious, when attained by bad measures, 
and purchased at the price of liberty." 1 have received a 
most charming letter from our friend Mrs. Warren. She 
desires me to tell you that her best wishes attend you 
through your journey, both as a friend and a patriot, — 
hopes you will have no uncommon difficulties to surmount, 
or hostile movements to impede you, — but, if the Locrians 
should interrupt you, she hopes that you will beware, that 
no future annals may say you chose an ambitious Philip for 
your leader, who subverted the noble order of the Ameri- 
can Amphictyons, and built up a monarchy on the ruins of 
the happy institution. 

1 have taken a very great fondness for reading RoUin's 

, Ancient History since you left me. I am determined to go 
through with it, if possible, in these my days of solitude. 
I find great pleasure and entertainment from it, and I have 

\ persuaded Johnny to read me a page or two every day, 
and hope he will, from his desire to oblige me, entertain a 

/ fondness for it. 3^^ have had a charming rain, which lasted 
twelve hours, and has greatly revived the dying fruits of the 

I earth. 

' / I want much to hear from you.'' I long impatiently to 
\/have you upon the stage of action. The first of Septem- 

jber, or the month of September, perhaps, may be of as 
much importance to Great Britain, as the Ides of March 

1 See the answer by Mr. Adams, in the collection of letters heretofore 
published by the editor. It is dated Princeton, N. J., 28 August. 



LETTERS. 13 

were to Caesar. I wish you every public as well as private \ 
blessing, and that wisdom which is profitable both for 
instruction and edification, to conduct you in this difficult 
day. The little flock remember papa, and kindly wish to 
see him ; so does your most affectionate ' 

Abigail Adams. 



TO JOHN ADAMS. 

Braintree, 2 September, 1774. \r 

I AM very impatient to receive a letter from you. You y 
indulged me so much in that way in your last absence, that 
I now think I have a right to hear as often from you, as you | 
have leisure and opportunity to write. I hear that Mr. 
Adams' wrote to his son, and the Speaker^ to his lady ; but 
perhaps you did not know of the opportunity. I suppose 
you have before this time received two letters from me, and 
will write me by the same conveyance. I judge you reached 
Philadelphia last Saturday night. I cannot but felicitate you 
upon your absence a little while from this scene of pertur- 
bation, anxiety, and distress. I own I feel not a little agi- 
tated with the accounts I have this day received from town ; 
great commotions have arisen in consequence of a dis- 
covery of a traitorous plot of Colonel Brattle's, — his advice 
to Gage, to break every commissioned oflnicer, and to seize 
the province's and town's stock of gunpowder. This has 
so enraged and exasperated the people, that there is great 
apprehension of an immediate rupture. They have been 
all in flames ever since the new-fangled counsellors have 
taken their oaths. The importance, of which they consider 
the meeting of the Congress, and the result thereof to the 
community, withholds the arm of vengeance already lifted,! 

1 Mr. Samuel Adams. 

2 Mr. Cashing- had been the Speaker of the House of Representatives 
in Massachusetts until chosen a delegate to the Congress. 



14 LETTERS. 

which would most certainly fall with accumulated wrath 
upon Brattle, were it possible to come at him ; — but no 
sooner did he discover that his treachery had taken air, 
than he fled, not only to Boston, but into the camp, for 
safety. You will, by Mr. Tudor, no doubt have a much 
more accurate account than I am able to give you ; but one 
thing I can inform you of, which perhaps you may not have 
heard, namely, Mr. Vinton, our sheriff, it seems, received 
one of those twenty warrants,* which were issued by Messrs. 
Goldthwait and Price, which has cost them such bitter 
repentance and humble acknowledgments, and which has 
revealed the great secret of their attachment to the liberties 
of their country, and their veneration and regard for the 
good will of their countrymen. See their address to Hutch- 
inson and Gage. This warrant, which was for Stoughton- 
ham,* Vinton carried and delivered to a constable there; 
but, before he had got six miles, he was overtaken by sixty 
men on horseback, who surrounded him, and told him, 
unless he returned with them and demanded back that 
warrant and committed it to the flames before their faces, 
he must take the consequences of a refusal ; and he, not 
thinking it best to endure their vengeance, returned with 
them, made his demand of the warrant, and consumed it, 
upon which they dispersed and left him to his own reflec- 
tions. Since the news of the Quebec bill arrived, all the 
church people here have hung their heads, and will not 
converse upon politics, though ever so much provoked by 
the opposite party. Before that, parties ran very high, 
and very hard words and threats of blows upon both sides 
were given out. They have had their town-meeting here, 
which was full as usual, chose their committee for the 
county meeting, and did business without once regarding or 
fearing for the consequences. 

> These were warrants issued by the clerks of the court by which the 
juries were summoned. 

2 Now Sharon. The history of the events alluded to in this letter, may 
be found more at large in Gordon's " History of the American War,'' Vol. I. 
pp. 386, 387. 



LETTERS. 15 

I should be glad to know how you found the people as 
you travelled from town to town. I hear you met with 
great hospitality and kindness in Connecticut. Pray let me 
know how your health is, and whether you have not had 
exceeding hot weather. The drought has been very severe. 
My poor cows will certainly prefer a petition to you, setting 
forth their grievances, and informing you that they have 
been deprived of their ancient privileges, whereby they are 
become great sufferers, and desiring that they may be 
restored to them. More especially, as their living, by 
reason of the drought, is all taken from them, and their 
property which they hold elsewhere is decaying, they hum- 
bly pray that you would consider them, lest hunger should 
break through stone walls. 

The tenderest regard evermore awaits you from your 
most affectionate 

Abigail Adams. 



TO JOHN ADAMS. 



Braintree, 14 September, 1774 

DEAREST FRIEND. 



■'■> 



Five weeks have passed and not one line have I receivedi / 
I would rather give a dollar for a letter by the post, thoughr 
the consequence should be, that I ate but one meal a day 
these three weeks to come. Every one I see is inquiring ^ 
after you. — When did I hear? — All my intelligence is 
collected from the newspaper, and I can only reply that I ( 
saw by that, you arrived such a day. I know your fondness 
for writing, and your inclination to let me hear from you by) 
the first safe conveyance, which makes me suspect that 
some letter or other has miscarried, — but I hope, now you| 
have arrived at Philadelphia, you will find means to convey 
me some intelligence. We are all well here. I think I 
enjoy better health than I have done these two years. I 



16 LETTERS. 

have not been to town since I parted with you there. The 
Governor is making all kinds of warlike preparations, such 

\ as mounting cannon upon Beacon Hill, digging intrench- 
ments upon the Neck, placing cannon there, encamping a 
regiment there, throwing up breast works, &c. The people 
feire much alarmed, and the selectmen have waited upon him 
in consequence of it. The County Congress have also sent 

I a committee ; all which proceedings you will have a more 
particular account of, than I am able to give you, from the 
public papers. But, as to the movements of this town, per- 

' haps you may not hear them from any other person. 

In consequence of the powder being taken from Charles- 
town, a general alarm spread through many towns and was 
caught pretty soon here. The report took here on Friday, 
and on Sunday a soldier was seen lurking about the Com- 
mon, supposed to be a spy, but most likely a deserter. 
However, intelligence of it was communicated to the other 
parishes, and about eight o'clock, Sunday evening, there 
passed by here about two hundred men, preceded by a 
horsecart, and marched down to the powder-house, from 
whence they took the powder, and carried it into the other 
parish and there secreted it. I opened the window upon 
their return. They passed without any noise, not a word 
among them till they came against this house, when some 
of them perceiving me, asked me if I wanted any powder. 
I replied. No, since it was in so good hands. — The reason 
they gave for taking it was, that we had so many Tories 
here, they dared not trust us with it ; they had taken Vinton* 
in their train, and upon their return they stopped between 
Cleverly's and Etter's and called upon him to deliver two 
warrants.''* Upon his producing them, they put it to vote 
whether they should burn them, and it passed in the affirm- 
ative. They then made a circle and burnt them. They 
then called a vote whether they should huzza, but, it being 
Sunday evening, it passed in the negative. They called 
upon Vinton to swear, that he would never be instrumental 

1 The Sheriff. 2 por suinmoamg juries. 



LETTERS. 17 

in carrying into execution any of these new acts. They 
were not satisfied with his answers ; however, they let him 
rest. A few days afterwards, upon his making some foolish 
speeches, they assembled to the amount of two or three 
hundred, and swore vengeance upon him unless he took a 
solemn oath. Accordingly, they chose a committee and 
sent it with him to Major Miller's to see that he complied ; 
and they waited his return, which proving satisfactory, they 
dispersed. This town appears as high as you can well 
imagine, and, if necessary, would soon be in arms. Not a^ 
Tory but hides his head. The Church parson thought they 
were coming after him, and ran up garret; they say> 
another jumped out of his window and hid among the \ 
corn, whilst a third crept under his board fence and told I 
his beads. 

16 September, 1774. 

I dined to-day at Colonel Quincy's. They were so kind 
as to send me and Abby and Betsey an invitation to spend 
the day with them; and, as 1 had not been to see them 
since I removed to Braintree, I accepted the invitation. 
After I got there came Mr. Samuel Quincy's wife and Mr. 
Sumner, Mr. Josiah and wife.* A little clashing of parties, 
you may be sure. Mr. Sam's wife said, she thought it high 
time for her husband to turn about ; he had not done half 
so cleverly since he left her advice ; said they both greatly 
admired the most excellent speech of the Bishop of St. 
Asaph, which I suppose you have seen. It meets, and most 
certainly merits the greatest encomiums.^ 

Upon my return at night, Mr. Thaxter met me at the 
door with your letter,^ dated at Princeton, New Jersey. It 

' It is well knowTi, that these two brothers took opposite sides in the 
struggle that ensued. 

2 Dr. Shipley. See Correspondence of Chatham, vol. 4, p. 302, for the 
same opinion. Also the writings of Dr. Franklin, vol. 8, p. 124, Sparks*s 
edition. 

3 See the letter of Mr. Adams, 28 August, 1774, in the collection before 
referred to. 

2 



18 LETTERS. 

really gave me such a flow of spirits, that I was not com- 
posed enough to sleep until one o'clock. You make no 
mention of one I wrote you previous to that you received 
by Mr. Breck, and sent by Mr. Cunningham. I am re- 
joiced to hear you are well. I want to know many more 
particulars than you write me, and hope soon to hear from 
you again. I dare not trust myself with the thought how 
long you may perhaps be absent. I only count the weeks 
already past and they amount to five. I am not so lonely 
as I should have been without my two neighbors ; we 
make a table-full at meal times. All the rest of their time 
they spend in the office. Never were two persons who 
gave a family less trouble than they do. It is at last de- 
termined, that Mr. Rice keep the school here. Indeed, he 
has kept ever since he has been here, but not with any 
expectation that he should be continued ; — but the people, 
finding no small difference between him and his prede- 
cessor, chose he should be continued. I have not sent 
Johnny.' He goes very steadily to Mr. Thaxter, who I believe 
takes very good care of him ; and, as they seem to have 
a liking to each other, I believe it will be best to continue 
him with him. However, wheh you return, we can consult 
what will be best. I am certain that, if he does not get so 
much good, he gets less harm ; and I have always thought 
it of very great importance, that children should, in the 
'early part of life, be unaccustomed to such examples as 
would tend to corrupt the purity of their words and actions, 
that they may chill with horror at the sound of an oath, 
and blush with indignation at an obscene expression. These 
first principles, which grow with their growth, and strengthen 
with their strength, neither time nor custom can totally 
eradicate. You will perhaps be tired. No. — Let it serve 
by way of relaxation from the more important concerns of 
the day, and be such an amusement, as your little hermit- 
age used to afford you here. You have before you, to ex- 
press myself in the words of the Bishop, the greatest national 

1 Her son, John Quincy Adams. 



LETTERS. 19 

concerns that ever came before any people ; and, if the 
prayers and petitions ascend unto Heaven, which are daily 
offered for you, wisdom will flow down as a stream, and 
righteousness as the mighty waters, and your deliberations 
will make glad the cities of our God. 

I was very sorry I did not know of Mr. Gary's going ; 
it would have been so good an opportunity to have sent 
this, as I lament the loss of. You have heard, no doubt, 
of the people's preventing the court from sitting in various 
counties ; and last week, in Taunton, Angier urged the 
court's opening, and calling out the actions, but could not 
effect it. I saw a letter from Miss Eunice, wherein she 
gives an account of it, and says there were two thousand 
men assembled round the court-house, and, by a committee 
of nine, presented a petition requesting that they would 
not sit, and with the utmost order waited two hours for 
their answei:, when they dispersed. 

You will burn all these letters, lest they should fall from 
your pocket, and thus expose your most affectionate friend, 

Abigail Adams. 



TO JOHN ADAMS. 

Boston Garrison, 22 September, 1774. 

I HAVE just returned from a visit to my brother with my 
father, who carried me there the day before yesterday, and 
called here on my return, to see this much injured town. 
I view it with much the same sensations that I should the 
body of a departed friend ; — as having only put off its 
present glory, to rise finally to a more happy state. I will 
not despair, but will believe, that, our cause being good, 
we shall finally prevail. The maxim, " In time of peace 
prepare for war," (if this may be called a time of peace), 
resounds throughout the country. Next Tuesday they are 
warned to Braintree, all above fifteen and under sixty, to 
attend with their arms ; and to train once a fortnight from 
that time is a scheme which lies much at heart with many. 



20 LETTERS. 

Scott has arrived, and brings news that he expected to 
find all peace and quietness here, as he left them at home. 
You will have more particulars than I am able to send you, 
from much better hands. There has been in town a con- 
spiracy of the negroes. At present it is kept pretty private, 
and was discovered by one Vv'ho endeavoured to dissuade 
them from it. He being threatened with his life, applied 
to Justice Quincy for protection. They conducted in this 
way, got an Irishman to draw up a petition to the Governor, 
telling him they would fight for him provided he would arm 
them, and engage to liberate them if he conquered. And 
it is said that he attended so much to it, as to consult Percy 
upon it, and one Lieutenant Small has been very busy and 
active. There is but little said, and what steps they will 
take in consequence of it I know not. I wish most sin- 
cerely there was not a slave in the province ; it always 
appeared a most iniquitous scheme to me to fight ourselves 
for what we are daily robbing and plundering from those 
who have as good a right to freedom as we have. You 
know my mind upon this subject. 

I left all our little ones well, and shall return to them to- 
night. I hope to hear from you by the return of the bearer 
of this, and by Revere. I long for the day of your return, 
yet look upon you as much safer where you are, but know 
it will not do for you ; — not one action has been brought 
to this court, — no business of any sort in your way, — all 
law ceases, and the gospel will soon follow ; for they are 
supporters of each other. Adieu, my father hurries me. 
Yours most sincerely, 

Abigail Adams. 



TO JOHN ADAMS. 

Braiutree, 16 October, 1774. 



/. 



\i 



MY MUCH LOVED FRIEND, 

\ I DARE not express to you, at three hundred miles' distance, 
how ardently I long for your return. I have some very 



LETTERS. 21 

miserly wishes, and cannot consent to your spending onei 
hour in town, till, at least, I have had you twelve. The\\ 
idea plays about my heart, unnerves my hand, whilst I. 
write, — awakens all the tender sentiments, that years have ' 
increased and matured, and which, when with me, were!, 
every day dispensing to you. The whole collected stock of \ 
ten weeks' absence knows not how to brook any longer i 
restraint, but will break forth and flow through my pen. I 
May the like sensations enter thy breast, and (spite of all 
the weighty cares of state) mingle themselves with tho^e I 
wish to communicate ; for, in giving them utterance, I havdi 
felt more sincere pleasure, than I have known since the lOtli 
of August.' Many have been the anxious hours I havcj 
spent since that day ; the threatening aspect of our publicr 
affairs, the complicated distress of this province, the arduous i 
and perplexed business in which you are engaged, have all 1 
conspired to agitate my bosom with fears and apprehensions 
to which I have heretofore been a stranger ; and, far from \ 
thinking the scene closed, it looks as though the curtain was 
but just drawn, and only the first scene of the infernal plot 
disclosed ; and whether the end will be tragical. Heaven 
alone knows. You cannot be, I know, nor do I wish to see 
you, an inactive spectator ; but, if the sword be drawn, I 
bid adieu to all domestic felicity, and look forward to that 
country, where there are neither wars nor rumors of war, 
in a firm belief, that through the mercy of its King, we shall 
both rejoice there together. 

I greatly fear, that the arm of treachery and violence is 
lifted over us, as a scourge and heavy punishment from 
Heaven for our numerous offences, and for the misimprove- 
ment of our great advantages. If we expect to inherit the 
blessings of our fathers, we should return a little more to 
their primitive simplicity of manners, and not sink into in- 
glorious ease. We have too many high sounding words, 
and too few actions that correspond with them. 1 have 
spent one Sabbath in town since you left. I saw no differ- 

1 The day on which he left her. 



22 LETTERS. 

ence in respect to ornament, &;c. ; but in the country you 
must look for that virtue, of which you find but small glim- 
merings in the metropolis. Indeed, they have not the ad- 
vantages, nor the resolution, to encourage our own manu- 
factories, which people in the country have. To the mer- 
cantile part, it is considered as throwing away their own 
bread ; but they must retrench their expenses, and be con- 
tent with a small share of gain, for they will find but few 
who will wear their livery. As for me I will seek wool 
\and flax, and work willingly with my hands ; and, indeed, 
there is occasion for all our industry and economy. You 
I mention the removal of our books, &c., from Boston;^ I 
believe they are safe there, and it would incommode the 
I gentlemen to remove them, as they would not then have a 
place to repair to for study. I suppose they would not 
choose to be at the expense of boarding out. Mr. Williams, 
1 believe, keeps pretty much with his mother. Mr. Hill's 
father had some thoughts of removing up to Braintree, 
provided he could be accommodated with a house, which 
he finds very difficult. 

Mr. Cranch's last determination was to tarry in town, 
unless any thing new takes place. His friends in town op- 
pose his removal so much, that he is determined to stay. 
The opinion you have entertained of General Gage is, I 
believe, just. Indeed, he professes to act only upon the 
defensive. The people in the country begin to be vary 
anxious for the Congress to rise ; they have no idea of the 
weighty business you have to transact, and their blood boils 
with indignation at the hostile preparations they are con- 
stant witnesses of Mr. Quincy's so secret departure is 
matter of various speculation ; some say he is deputed by 
the Congress, others, that he is gone to Holland, and the 
Tories say he is gone to be hanged.^ 

I rejoice at the favorable account you give me of your 
health. May it be continued to you. My health is much 

1 Letter of ]\Ir. Adams, 29 September, 1774. 

2 See the " Memoir of the Life of Josiah Quiiicy, Jr.," by his son, Josiah 
Quincy, p. 1S2. 



LETTERS. 23 

better than it was last fall ; some folks say I grow very fat. 
I venture to write almost any thing in this letter, because I 
know the care of the bearer. He will be most sadly disap- 
pointed, if you should be broken up before he arrives ; as 
he is very desirous of being introduced by you to a number 
of gentlemen of respectable character. I almost envy him, 
that he should see you before I can. Mr. Thaxter and Mr. 
Rice present their regards to you. Uncle Quincy, too, 
sends his love to you. He is very good to call and see me, 
and so have many other of my friends been. Colonel War- 
ren and lady were here on Monday, and send their love to 
you. The Colonel promised to write. Mrs. Warren will 
spend a day or two, on her return, with me. I told Betsey^ 
to write to you ; she says she would, if you were her hus- 
band. 

Your mother sends her love to you ; and all your family, 
too numerous to name, desire to be remembered. You will 
receive letters from two, who are as earnest to write to 
papa, as if the welfare of a kingdom depended upon it. If 
you can give any guess, within a month, let me know when 
you think of returning. 

Your most affectionate 

Abigail Adams. 



TO JOHN ADAMS.'' 

Braintree, 4 May, 1775. V 

I HAVE but little news to write you. Every thing of that 
kind you will learn by a more accurate hand than mine. 
Things remain in much the same situation here, that they 
were when you went away. There has been no descent 

^ Mrs. Adams's sister ; who was afterwards married to the Rev. John 
Shaw, and to whom .several of the letters in thi.s volume were addre.ssed. 

2 Mr. Adams was at home during the interval between the sessions of 
Congress, marked by the dates of lliis and the preceding letter. 



24 LJITTERS. 

upon the seacoast. Guards are regularly kept ; and people 
seem more settled, and are returning to their husbandry. I 
feel somewhat lonely. Mr. Thaxler is gone home. Mr. 
Rice is going into the army, as captain of a company. We 
have no school. I know not what to do with John. As 
government is assumed, I suppose courts of justice will be 
established, and in that case, there may be business to do. 
If so, would it not be best for Mr. Thaxter to return ? They 
seem to be discouraged in the study of law, and think there 
never will be any business for them. I could have wished 
they had consulted you upon the subject, before you went 
away. 

I suppose you will receive two or three volumes of that 
forlorn wretch Hutchinson's letters. Among many other 
things, I hear he wrote, in 1772, that Deacon Phillips and 
you had like to have been chosen into the Council, but, if 
you had, you should have shared the same fate with Bowers.* 
May the fate of Mordecai be his. There is nobody admitted 
into town yet. I have made two or three attempts to get 
somebody in, but cannot succeed ; so have not been able to 
do the business you left in charge with me. I want very 
much to hear from you, how you stood your journey, and 
in what state you find yourself now. I felt very anxious 
about you ; though I endeavoured to be very insensible and 
heroic, yet my heart felt like a heart of lead. The same 
night you left me, I heard of Mr. Quincy's death, which, at 
this time, was a most melancholy event ; especially, as he 
wrote in minutes, which he left behind, that he had matters 
of consequence intrusted with him, which, for want of a 
confidant, must die with him.^ I went to see his distressed 
widow last Saturday, at the Colonel's ; and, in the afternoon, 
from an alarm they had, she and her sister, with three others 
of the family, took refuge with me and tarried all night. 
She desired me to present her regards to you, and let you 
know, she wished you every blessing, — should always 

* That is, Avould have received his negative. 
2 See " Memoir of Jo.siah Quincy, Jr." p. 345. 



LETTERS. 25 

esteem you, as a sincere friend of her deceased husband. 
Poor afllicted woman ; my heart was wounded for her. I 
must quit the subject, and entreat you to write mc by every 
opportunity. 

Yours, / 

Portia. \/ 



TO JOHN ADAMS. 

Braintree, 7 May, 1775. 

I RECEIVED by the Deacon two letters' from you, this day, 
from Hartford. I feel a recruit of spirits upon the recep- 
tion of them, and the comfortable news which they contain. 
We had not heard any thing from North Carolina before, 
and Gould not help feeling anxious, lest we should find a 
defection there, arising more from their ancient feuds and 
animosities, than from any settled ill-will in the present 
contest ; but the confirmation of the choice of their del- 
egates by their Assembly, leaves not a doubt of their firm- 
ness ; nor doth the eye say unto the hand, " I have no need 
of^thee." The Lord will not cast off his people, neither 
will he forsake his inheritance. Great events are most cer- 
tainly in the womb of futurity ; and, if the present chastise- 
ments which we experience have a proper influence upon 
our conduct, the event will certainly be in our favor. The 
distresses of the inhabitants of Boston are beyond the power 
of language to describe ; there are but very few who are 
permitted to come out in a day ; they delay giving passes, 
make them wait from hour to hour, and their counsels are not 
two hours together alike. One day, they shall come out with 
their eflfects ; the next day, merchandise is not efl^ects. One 
day, their household furniture is to come out; the next, only 
wearing apparel ; the next, Pharaoh's heart is hardened, and 
he refuseth to hearken to them, and will not let the people go. 

1 See ]Mr. Adams's letters, 30 April and 2 May, 1775. 



26 LETTERS. 

May their deliverance be wrought out for them, as it was 
for the children of Israel. I do not mean by miracles, but 
by the interposition of Heaven in their favor. They have 
taken a list of all those who they suppose were concerned 
in watching the tea, and every other person whom they call 
obnoxious, and they and their effects are to suffer destruc- 
tion. 

Yours, 

Portia. 



TO JOHN ADAMS. 

Braintree, 24 May, 1775. 

I SUPPOSE you have had a formidable account of the alarm 
we had last Sunday morning. When I rose, about six 
o'clock, I was told, that the drums had been some time 
beating, and that three alarm guns were fired ; that Wey- 
mouth bell had been ringing, and Mr. Weld's was then 
ringing. I immediately sent off an express to know the 
occasion, and found the whole town in. confusion. Three 
sloops and one cutter had come out and dropped anchor just 
below Great Hill. It was difficult to tell their designs ; some 
supposed they were coming to Germantown, others, to Wey- 
mouth ; people, women, children, from the iron-works, came 
flocking down this way ; every woman and child driven off 
from below my father's; my father's family flying The 
Doctor ' is in great distress, as you may well imagine, for 
my aunt had her bed thrown into a cart into which she got 
herself, and ordered the boy to drive her to Bridgevvater, 
which he did. The report was to them, that three hundred 
had landed, and were upon their march up into town. The 
alarm flew like lightning, and men from all parts came 
flocking down, till two thousand were collected. But, it 

1 Dr. Cotton Tufts, of "Weymouth, well known for many years, as a lead- 
ing man in the County of Norfolk, had married a daughter of Colonel John 
Quincy, and, therefore, a sister of Mrs. Adams's mother. 



LETTERS. 27 

seems, their expedition was to Grape Island for Levett's hay. 
There it was impossible to reach them, for want of boats; 
but the sight of so many persons, and the firing at them, 
prevented their getting more thafi three tons of hay, though 
they had carted much more down to the water. At last a 
lighter was mustered, and a sloop from Hingham, which had 
six port holes. Our men eagerly jumped on board, and put 
off for the island. As soon as they perceived it, they de- 
camped. Our people landed upon the island, and in an in- 
stant set fire to the hay, which, with the barn, was soon 
consumed ; — about eighty tons, it is said. We expect soon 
to be in continual alarms, till something decisive takes place. 
We wait, with longing expectation, in hopes to hear the best 
accounts from you, with regard to union and harmony, &c. 
We rejoice greatly on the arrival of Dr. Franklin, as he 
must certainly be able to inform you very particularly of 
the situation of affairs in England. I wish you would, if 
you can get time, be as particular as you may^ when yoif 
•write. Every one hereabouts comes to me, to hear what 
accounts I have. I was so unlucky, as not to get the letter\ 
you wrote at New York. Captain Beale forgot it, and left 
it behind. We have a flying report here, with regard to 
New York, but cannot give any credit to it, as yet, that 
they had been engaged with the ships, which Gage sent 
there, and had taken them, with great loss upon both sides. 

Yesterday we had an account of three ships coming into 
Boston. I belive it is true, as there was a salute from the 
other ships, though I have not been able to learn from 
whence they come. I suppose you have had an account of' 
the fire, which did much damage to the warehouses, and 
added greatly to the distresses of the inhabitants, whilst it I 
continued. The bad conduct of General Gage' was the 1 
means of its doing so much damage. 

Our house has been, upon this alarm, in the same scene 
of confusion, that it was upon the former. Soldiers coming 

' He had taken the eng-ines under g'uard, in consequence of a report, that 
the Uberty party intended to fire the town. See '• The Renieiubrancer," for 
1775, pp. 95, 98. 



28 LETTERS. 

j in for a lodging, for breakfast, for supper, for drink, &c. 
Sometimes refugees from Boston, tired and fatigued, seek 
j an asylum for a day, a night, a week. You can hardly 
(imagine how we live ; yet,' 

" To the houseless cliild of want, 
Our doors are open still ; 
And, though our portions are but scant, 
We give them with good will." 

My best wishes attend you, both for your health and happi- 
ness, and that you may be directed into the wisest and best 
measures for our safety, and the security of our posterity. 
I wish you were nearer to us ; we know not what a day 
will bring forth, nor what distress one hour may throw us 
into. Hitherto I have been able to maintain a calmness 
and presence of mind, and hope I shall, let the exigency of 
the time be what it will. Adieu, breakfast calls. 

Your affectionate 

Portia. 



TO JOHN ADAMS. 



V Weymouth, 15 June, 1775. V 

I SAT down to write to you on Monday, but really could not 
compose myself sufficiently ; the anxiety I suffered from 
not hearing one syllable from you for more than five weeks, 
and the new distress arising from the arrival of recruits, 
agitated me more than I have been since the never-to-be- 
forgotten 14th of April' I have been much revived by re- 
ceiving two letters from you last night ; one^ by the servant 
of your friend, and the other by the gentleman you men- 
tion, though they both went to Cambridge, and I have not 
seen them. I hope to send this, as a return to you. 

I feared much for your health, when you went away. I 

1 The day upon which he left her. 

2 Letter of Mr. Adams, 29 May, 1775. 




LETTERS. 29 

must entreat you to be as careful as you can consistently 
with the duty you owe your country. That consideration, 
alone, prevailed with me to consent to your departure, in a 
time so perilous and so hazardous to your family, and with 
a body so infirm as to require the tenderest care and nurs- 
ing. I wish you may be supported and .divinely assisted in 
this most important crisis, when the fate of empire depends 
upon your wisdom and conduct. I greatly rejoice to hear 
of your union and determination to stand by us. 

We cannot but consider the great distance you are from 
us as a very great misfortune, when our critical situatio^ 
renders it necessary to hear from you every week, and will 
be more and more so, as difficulties arise. We now expect 
our seacoast ravaged ; perhaps the very next letter I write I 
will inform 5'^ou, that I am driven away from our yet quiet / 
cottage. Necessity will oblige Gage to take some desper- ^ 
ate steps. We are told for truth, that he is now eight thou- 
sand strong. We live in continual expectation of alarms. 
Courage, 1 know we have in abundance, — conduct, I hope 
we shall not want ; but powder, — where shall we get a suffi- 
cient supply .? I wish we may not fail there. Every 
town is filled with the distressed inhabitants of Boston. Our! 
house among others is deserted, and by this time, like enough, 
made use of as a barrack. Mr. Bowdoin and his lady are 
at present in the house of Mrs. Borland, and are going to 
Middleborough, to the house of Judge Oliver. He, poor 
gentleman, is so low, that 1 apprehend he is hastening to 
a house not made with hands ; he looks like a mere skele- 
ton, speaks faint and low, is racked with a violent cough, 
and, I think, far advanced in a consumption. I went to see 
him last Saturday. He is very inquisitive of every person 
with regard to the times ; begged 1 would let him know of 
the first intelligence I had from you ; is very unable to con- 
verse by reason of his cough. He rides every pleasant day, 
and has been kind enough to call at the door (though un- 
able to get out) several times. He says the very name of 
Hutchinson distresses him. Speaking of him, the other day, 
he broke out, — " Religious rascal ! how I abhor his name." 



30 LETTERS. 

Pray be as particular as possible wben you write. Every- 
body wants to hear and to know what is doing, and what may 
be communicated do not fail to inform me of. All our friends 
desire to be kindly remembered to you. Gage's proclama- 
tion you will receive by this conveyance. All the records 
of time cannot produce a blacker page. Satan, when 
driven from the regions of bliss, exhibited not more malice. 
Surely the father of lies is superseded. Yet we think it the 
best proclamation he could have issued. 

I shall, whenever I can, receive- and entertain, in the best 
manner I am capable, the gentlemen who have so generously 
proffered their services in our army. Government is wanted 
in the army and elsewhere. We see the want of it more 
from so large a body being together, than when each indi- 
vidual was employed in his own domestic circle. My best 
regards attend every man you esteem. You will make my 
compliments to Mr. Mifflin and lady. I do not now wonder 
at the regard the ladies express for a soldier. Every man 
who wears a cockade appears of double the importance he 
used to do, and I feel a respect for the lowest subaltern in 
the army. You tell me you know not when you shall see 
> me. I never trust myself long with the terrors which some- 
I times intrude themselves upon me. 

L I hope we shall see each other again, and rejoice together 

■vlin happier days ; the little ones are well, and send duty to 

^ papa. Don't fail of letting me hear from you by every 

opportunity. Every line is like a precious relic of the 

saints. 

I have a request to make of you ; something like the 

barrel of sand, I suppose you will think it, but really of 

much more importance to me. It is, that you would send 

out Mr. Bass,* and purchase me a bundle of pins and put 

'them in your trunk for me. The cry for pins is so great, 

j that what I used to buy for seven shillings and sixpence, are 

j now twenty shillings, and not to be had for that. A bundle 

contains six thousand, for which I used to give a dollar ; 

1 A man who accompanied Mr. Adams in the capacity of a servant. 



LETTERS. 31 

but if you can procure them for fifty shillings, or three 
pounds/ pray let me have them. 
I am, with the tenderest regard, 

Your Portia. 



TO JOHN ADAMS. 

Sunday, 18 June, 1775. 

DEAREST FRIEND, 

The day, — perhaps, the decisive day, — is come, orii 
which the fate of America depends. My bursting heard 
must find vent at my pen. I have just heard, that our dear . / 
friend, Dr. Warren, is no more, but fell gloriously fighting »/ 
for his country ; saying, better to die honorably in the field, 
than ignominiously hang upon the gallows. Great is our ' 
loss. He has distinguished himself in every engagement, 
by his courage and fortitude, by animating the soldiers, and 
leading them on by his own example. A particular account 
of these dreadful, but I hope glorious days, will be trans- 
mitted you, no doubt, in the exactest manner. 

" The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong ; 
but the God of Israel is he, that giveth strength and power 
unto his people. Trust in him at all times, ye people, pour 
out your hearts before him ; God is a refuge for us." 
Charlestown is laid in ashes. The battle began upon our 
intrench ments upon Bunker's Hill, Saturday morning about 
three o'clock, and has not ceased yet, and it is now three 
o'clock Sabbath afternoon. 

It is expected they will come out over the Neck to-night, 
and a dreadful battle must ensue. Almighty God, cover 
the heads of our countrymen, and be a shield to our dear 
friends ! How many have fallen, we know not. The con- 

^ Tliis price must have been caused by the obstructions to trade, as tliere 
had been no emission of paper money of importance. 



33 LETTERS. 



f 



.stant roar of the cannon is so distressing, that we cannot 
leat, drink, or sleep. May we be supported and sus- 
tained in the dreadful conflict. I shall tarry here till it is 
\ Uhought unsafe by my friends, and then I have secured 
myself a retreat at your brother's, who has kindly offered 
me part of his house. I cannot compose myself to write 
any further at present. I will add more as I hear further. 



Tuesday afternoon. 

I have been so much agitated, that I have not been able 
to write since Sabbath day. When I say, that ten thou- 
sand reports are passing, vague and uncertain as the wind, 
I believe I speak the truth. 1 am not able to give you any 
authentic account of last Saturday, but you will not be 
destitute of intelligence. Colonel Palmer has just sent me 
word, that he has an opportunity of conveyance. Incor- 
rect as this scrawl will be, it shall go. I ardently pray, 
that you may be supported through the arduous task you 
have before you. I wish I could contradict the report of 
the Doctor's death ; but it is a lamentable truth, and the 
tears of multitudes pay tribute to his memory ; those favorite 
lines of Collins continually sound in my ears ; 

" How sleep the brave," 6cc.^ 

I must close, as the Deacon waits. I have not pretended 
to be particular with regard to what I have heard, because 
I know you will collect better intelligence. The spirits of 
the people are very good ; the loss of Charlestown affects 
them no more than a drop of the bucket. I am, most sin- 
cerely, 

Yours, 

Portia. 

* Collins's Ode is loo well known to need insertion. 



LETTERS. 33 



TO JOHN ADAMS. 

22 June, 1775. 

I RECEIVED yours of June 10th,* for which 1 thank you. I 
want you to be more particular. Does every member feel 
for us ? Can they realize what we suffer ? And can they 
beUeve, with what patience and fortitude we endure the 
conflict ? Nor do we even tremble at the frowns of power. 
You inquire of me who were at the engagement at Grape 
Island. I may say, with truth, all of Weymouth, Brain- 
tree, Hingham, who were able to bear arms, and hundreds 
from other towns within twenty, thirty, and forty miles of 
Weymouth. Our good friend, the Doctor,^ is in a miser- 
able state of health, and hardly able to go from his own 
house to my father's. Danger, you know, sometimes makes 
timid men bold. He stood that day very well, and gener- 
ously attended, with drink, biscuit, flints, &c., five hundred 
men, without taking any pay. He has since been chosen 
one of the Committee of Correspondence for that town, and 
has done much service, by establishing a regular method of 
alarm from town to town. Both your brothers were there ; 
your younger brother, with his company, who gained honor 
by their good order that day. He was one of the first to 
venture on board a schooner, to land upon the island. As 
to Chelsea, I cannot be so particular, as I know only in gen- 
eral, that Colonel Putnam commanded there, and had many 
gentlemen volunteers. We have two companies stationed 
in this town; at Germantown, Captain Turner; at Squan- 
tum. Captain Vinton ; in W^eymouth, one ; in Hingham, two, 
&c. I beheve I shall remove your books this week to your, 
brother's. We think it advisable. Colonel Quincy has pro- 
cured his family a retreat at Deacon Holbrook's. Mr. Cranch 
has one at Major Bass's, in case of necessity, to which we 

J See INIr. Adams's letter of that date. ^ ]>. Tufts. 

3 



34 LETTERS. 

hope not to be driven. We hear, that the troops destined 
/ for New York are all expected here ; but we have got to 
; that pass, that a whole legion of them would not intimidate 
j us. I think I am very brave, upon the whole. If danger 
! comes near my dwelling, I suppose I shall shudder. We 
want powder, but, with the blessing of Heaven, we fear 
them not. Write every opportunity you can. 

I am Yours, 

Portia. 



TO JOHN ADAMS. 

Braiiitree, 25 June, 1775. 

DEAREST FRIEND. 

My father has been more afflicted by the destruction of 
Charlestown than by any thing which has heretofore taken 
place. Why should not his countenance be sad, when the 
city, the place of his father's sepulchre, lieth waste, and 
the gates thereof are consumed with fire ? Scarcely one 
stone remaineth upon another ; but in the midst of sorrow 
we have abundant cause of thankfulness, that so few of our 
brethren are numbered with the slain, whilst our enemies 
were cut down like the grass before the scythe. But one 
officer of all the Welsh fusileers remains to tell his story. 
Many poor wretches die for want of proper assistance and 
care of their wounds. 

Every account agrees in fourteen or fifteen hundred slain 
and wounded upon their side, nor can I learn that they dis- 
semble the number themselves. We had some heroes that 
day, who fought with amazing intrepidity and courage. 

" Extremity is the trier of spirits; 
— common chances common men can bear ; " 
And " when the sea is cahn, all boats alike 
Show mastership in floating. But fortune's blows, 
When most struck home, being bravely warded, crave 
A noble cumiing." 



LETTERS. 35 

I hear that General Howe said, that the battle upon the 
plains of Abram was but a bauble to this. When we con- 
sider afl the circumstances, attending this action, we stand 
astonished that our people were not all cut off. They had 
but one hundred feet entrenched, the number who were en- 
gaged did not exceed eight hundred, and they with not half 
ammunition enough ; the reinforcement not able to get to 
them seasonably. The tide was up, and high, so that their 
floating batteries came upon each side of the causeway, and 
their row-galleys kept a continual fire. Added to this, the 
fire from Cops Hill, and from the ships ; the town in flames, 
all around them, and the heat from the flames so intense as 
scarcely to be borne ; the day one of the hottest we have 
had this season, and the wind blowing the smoke in their 
faces, — only figure to yourself all these circumstances, and 
then consider that we do not count sixty men lost.^ My 
. heart overflows at the recollection. 

We live in continual expectation of hostilities. Scarcely 
a day that does not produce some ; but, like good Nehemiah, 
having made our prayer unto God, and set the people with 
their swords, their spears, and their bows, we will say unto 
them, "Be not ye afraid of them ; remember the Lord, 
who is great and terrible, and fight for your brethren, your 
sons, and your daughters, your wives and your houses." 

I have just received yours of the 17th of June, in seveii 
days only ; every line from that far^ country is precious ;1 
you do not tell me how you do, but I will hope better. 
Alas you little thought what distress we were in the day 
you wrote.^ They delight in molesting us upon the Sabbath. 
Two Sabbaths we have been in such alarm that we have 



^ This was below the truth ; but accuracy iii these details will not be look- 
ed for ill a letter wi'itteu at the moment, upon information necessarily defect- 
ive. 

2 The younger generation of the present day may need to be reminded 
that the "far country," a letter from which had arrived "in seven days 
only^'' was Philadelpliia. 

3 By reference to Mr. Adams's letter of that date it will be seen that it 
giv'es her the first intelligence of the election of Washington to the chief 
command. 



36 LETTERS. 

had no meeting ; this day we have sat under our own vine 
in quietness ; have heard Mr. Taft, from Psalms, " The Lord 
is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works." 
The good man was earnest and pathetic ; I could forgive 
his weakness for the sake of his sincerity, but I long for 
a Cooper and an Eliot. I want a person, who has feeling 
and sensibility, who can take one up with him, 

And " in his duty prompt, at every call," 

Can " watch, and weep, and pray, and feel for all." 

Mr. Rice joins General Heath's regiment to-morrow, as 
adjutant. Your brother is very desirous of being in the 
I army, but your good mother is really violent against it. I 
cannot persuade nor reason her into a consent. Nehher he 
(nor I dare let her know that he is trying for a place. My 
brother has a captain's commission, and is stationed at 
Cambridge. I thought you had the best of intelligence, or 
I should have taken pains to be more particular. As to 
Boston, there are many persons yet there, who would be 
glad to get out if they could. Mr. Boylston, and Mr. Gill, 
the printer, with his family, are held upon the black list, it 
is said. 'Tis certain they watch them so narrowly, that 
they cannot escape. Mr. Mather got out a day or two 
before Charlestown was destroyed, and had lodged his 
papers and what else he got out, at Mr. Gary's, but they 
were all consumed ; so were many other people's who 
thought they might trust their little there, till teams could 
be procured to remove them. The people from the alms- 
house and workhouse were sent to the lines, last week, to 
make room for their wounded, they say. Medford people 
are all removed. Every seaport seems in motion. O 
North, may the groans and cries of the injured and oppressed 
harrow up thy soul. We have a prodigious army, but we 
lack many accommodations, which we need. I hope the 
appointment of these new generals will give satisfaction ; 
they must be proof against calumny. In a contest like 
this, continual reports are circulated by our enemies, and 
they catch with the unwary and the gaping crowd, who are 



LETTERS. 37 

ready to listen to the marvellous, without considering of 
consequences, even though their best friends are injured. 

I have not ventured to inquire one word of you about 
your return. I do not know whether I ought to wish for it ; 
it seems as if your sitting together was absolutely necessary, 
whilst every day is big with events. 

Mr. Bowdoin called Friday, and took his leave of me, 
desiring I would present his affectionate regards to you. I 
have hopes that he will recover, he has mended a good deal. 
He wished he could have stayed in Braintree, but his lady 
was fearful. Yours evermore, 

Portia. 



TO JOHN ADAMS. 



Braintree, 5 July, 1775. 

I HAVE received a good deal of paper from you. I wish it 
had been more covered ; the writing is very scant, yet I 
must not grumble. I know your time is not yours nor 
mine. Your labors must be great and your mouth closed ; 
but all you may communicate, I beg you would. There is 
a pleasure, I know not whence it arises, nor can I stop now 
to find it out, but 1 say there is a degree of pleasure in 
being able to tell news^ especially any that so nearly con- 
cerns us, as all your proceedings do. 

I should have been more particular, but I thought you 
knew every thing that passed here. The present state of 
the inhabitants of Boston is that of the most abject slaves, 
under the most cruel and despotic of tyrants. Among 
many instances I could mention, let me relate one. Upon 
the 17th of June, printed handbills were posted up at the 
corners of the streets and upon houses, forbidding any 
inhabitants to go upon their houses, or upon any eminence, 
on pain of death ; the inhabitants dared not to look out of 
their houses, nor to be heard or seen to ask a question. 
Our prisoners were brought over to the Long Wharf, and 
there lay all night, without any care of their wounds or 



v/ 



38 LETTERS. 

any resting-place but the pavements, until the next day, 
when they exchanged it for the jail, since which we hear 
they are civilly treated. Their living cannot be good, as 
they can have no fresh provisions ; their beef, we hear, is all 
gone, and their wounded men die very fast, so that they have 
a report that the bullets were poisoned. Fish they cannot 
have, they have rendered it so difficult to procure ; and the 
admiral is such a villain as to oblige every fishing schooner 
to pay a dollar every time it goes out. The money that 
has been paid for passes is incredible. Some have given 
ten, twenty, thirty, and forty dollars, to get out with a small 
proportion of their things. It is reported and believed, that 
they have taken up a number of persons and committed 
them to jail, we know not for what in particular. Master 
Lovell is confined in the dungeon ; a son of Mr. Edes is in 
jail, and one Wiburt, a ship carpenter, is now upon trial for 
his life. God alone knows to what length these wretches 
will go, and will I hope restrain their malice. 

I would not have you be distressed about me. Danger, 
they say, makes people valiant. Hitherto I have been dis- 
^ tressed, but not dismayed. 1 have felt for my country and 
her sons. I have bled with them and for them. Not all 
the havoc and devastation they have made, has wounded 
me like the death of Warren. We want him in the Senate ; 
we want him in his profession ; we want him in the field. 
We mourn for the citizen, the senator, the physician, and 
the warrior. May we have others raised up in his room. 

I have had a very kind and friendly visit from our dear 

friends Colonel Warren, lady, and son. Mrs. Warren spent 

j almost a week with me, and he came and met her here, 

land kept Sabbath with me. I suppose she will write to you, 

'though she says you are in her debt. 

You scarcely make mention of Dr. Franklin. Surely he 
must be a valuable member. Pray, what is become of your 
Judas .'*' I see he is not with you upon the list of delegates. 

' It is uncertain who is alluded to here ; probably Mr. Galloway, of Penn- 
sylvania, who was a member of the first Congress, resisted the measures adopt- 



LETTERS. 39 

I wish I could come and see you. I never suffer myself to i / 
think you are about returning soon. Can it, will it be ? ^ 
May I ask — may I wish for it? When once I expect you, I 
the time will crawl till I see you. But hush ! Do you know J 
it is eleven o'clock at night ? We have had some very fine 
rains since I wrote you last. I hope we shall not now have 
famine added to war. Grain, grain is what we want here.! 
Meat we have enough, and to spare. Pray don't let Bass 
forget my pins. Hardwick has applied to me for Mr. Bass 
to get him a hundred of needles, number six, to carry on 
his stocking weaving. We shall very soon have no coffeej 
nor sugar, nor pepper here ; but whortleberries and milki 
we are not obliged to commerce for. I saw a letter of yours i 
to Colonel Palmer, by General Washington. 1 hope I have 
one too.^ Good night. With thoughts of thee do I close 
my eyes. Angels guard and protect thee ; and may a safe 
return ere long bless thy • 

Portia. 



TO JOHN ADAMS. 

/ 

Braintree, 16 July, 1775. 

DEAREST FRIEND, 

I HAVE seen your letters to Colonels Palmer and Warren. 
I pity your embarrassments. How difficult the task to 
quench the fire and the pride oT private ambition, and to 
sacrifice ourselves and all our hopes and expectations to the 
public weal ! How few have souls capable of so noble an 
undertaking! How often are the laurels worn by those 
who have had no share in earning them ! But there is a 
future recompense of reward, to which the upright man 
looks, and which he will most assuredly obtain, provided he 
perseveres unto the end. 

The appointment of the generals Washington and Lee 

ed by it, and subsequently became one of the most active of the loyal refu- 
gees. See Franklin's Works, edited by Jared Sparlcs. Vol. viii. p. 145, note. 

' Mr. Adams's letter, 18 June, 1775. 



40 LETTERS. 

gives universal satisfaction. The people have the highest 
opinion of Lee's abilities, but you know the continuation of 
the popular breath depends much upon favorable events. I 
had the pleasure of seeing both the generals and their aids- 
de-camp soon after their arrival, and of being personally 
made known to them. They very politely express their 
regard for you. Major Mifflin said he had orders from you 
to visit me at Braintree. I told him I should be very happy 
to see him there, and accordingly sent Mr. Thaxter to Cam- 
bridge with a card, to him and Mr. Read, to dine with me. 
Mrs. Warren and her son were to be with me. They very 
politely received the message, and lamented that they were 
not able to come, upon account of expresses which they 
were on that day to get in readiness to send off. 

I was struck with General Washington. You had pre- 
pared me to entertain a favorable opinion of him, but I 
thought the half was not told me. Dignity with ease and 
complacency, the gentleman and soldier, look agreeably 
blended in him. Modesty marks every line and feature of 
his face. Those lines of Dryden instantly occurred to me ; 

I " Mark his majestic fabric ! he 's a temple 

Sacred by biilh, and built by hands divine ; 
His soul 's the deity that lodges there ; 
Nor is the pile unworthy of the god." 

General Lee looks like a careless, hardy veteran, and, by 
his appearance, brought to my mind his namesake, Charles 
the Twelfth, of Sweden, The elegance of his pen far ex- 
ceeds that of his person. 

-'" You have made frequent complaints that your friends do 
not write to you. I have stirred up some of them. May 
not I in my turn make complaints .? All the letters I re- 
ceive from you seem to be written in so much haste, that 
they scarcely leave room for a social feeling. They let me 
know that you exist, but some of them contain scarcely si^; 

1 lines. I want some sentimental effusions of the heart. 

1 am sure you are not destitute of them ; or are they all ab 
sorbed in the great public ? Much is due to that, I know 

\ but, being part of the public, I lay claim to a larger share 



LETTERS. tA 

than I have had. You used to be more communicative on 
Sundays. I always loved a Sabbath day's letter, for then Y 
you had a greater command of your time ; but hush to all 
complaints. 

I am much surprised that you have not been more accu- 
rately informed of what passes in the camps. As to intel- 
ligence from Boston, it is but very seldom we are able to 
collect any thing that may be relied on ; and to report the 
vague, flying rumors, would be endless. I heard yesterday, 
by one Mr. Roulstone, a goldsmith, who got out in a fishing 
schooner, that their distress increased upon them fast. 
Their beef is all spent ; their malt and cider all gone. All 
the fresh provisions they can procure, they are obliged to 
give to the sick and wounded. Thirteen of our men who 
were in jail, and were wounded at the battle of Charles- 
town, were dead. No man dared now to be seen talking to 
his friend in the street. They were obliged to be within, 
every evening, at ten o'clock, according to martial law ; nor 
could any inhabitant walk any street in town after that time, 
without a pass from Gage. He has ordered all the molas- 
ses to be distilled into rum for the soldiers ; taken away 
all licenses, and given out others, obliging to a forfeiture of 
ten pounds, if any rum is sold without written orders from 
the general. He gives much the same account of the killed 
and wounded we have from others. The spirit, he says, 
which prevails among the soldiers, is a spirit of malice and 
revenge ; there is no true courage and bravery to be ob- 
served among them. Their duty is hard ; always mounting 
guard with their packs at their backs, ready for an alarm, 
which they live in continual hazard of. Dr. Eliot is not on 
board a man-of-war, as has been reported, but perhaps was 
left in town, as the comfort and support of those who cannot 
escape. He was constantly with our prisoners. Messrs. 
Lovell and Leach, with others, are certainly in jail. A 
poor milch cow was last week killed in town, and sold for a 
shilling sterling per pound. The transports arrived last 
week from York, but every additional man adds to their 
distress. There has been a little expedition this week to 



42 LETTERS. 

Long Island.* There have been, before, several attempts 
to go oij, but three men-of-war lay near, and cutters all 
round the island, so that they could not succeed. A num- 
ber of whaleboats lay at Germantown. Three hundred 
volunteers, commanded by one Captain Tupper, came on 
Monday evening and took the boats, went on, and brought 
off seventy odd sheep, fifteen head of cattle, and sixteen 
prisoners, thirteen of whom were sent by (Simple Sapling)' 
to mow the hay, which they had very badly executed. 
They were all asleep in the house and barn. When they 
were taken, there were three women with them. Our 
heroes came off in triumph, not being observed by their 
enemies. This spirited up others, who could not endure 
the thought that the house and barn should afford them any 
shelter ; — they did not destroy them the night before for 
fear of being discovered. Captain Wild, of this town, with 
about twenty-five of his company; Captain Gold, of Wey- 
mouth, with as many of his, and some other volunteers, to 
the amount of a hundred, obtained leave to go on and 
destroy the hay, together with the house and barn ; and in 
open day, in full view of the men-of-war, they set oft" from 
the Moon^ so called, covered by a number of men who 
were placed there, — went on and set fire to the buildings 
and hay. A number of armed cutters immediately sur- 
rounded the island and fired upon our men. They came 
off* with a hot and continued fire upon them, the bullets fly- 
ing in every direction, and the men-of-war's boats plying 
them with small arms. Many in this town, who were spec- 
tators, expected every moment our men would all be sacri- 
ficed, for sometimes they were so near as to be called and 
damned by their enemies, and ordered to surrender ; yet 
they all returned in safety, not one man even wounded. 
Upon the Moon we lost one man, from the cannon on board 
the man-of-war. On the evening of the same day, a man- 

1 Li Boston harbor. This event is repeatedly noticed in " The Remem- 
brancer," for 1775, pp. 242,257, 262. 

2 These are the words in the original, but the Editor cannot explain them. 

3 The name given to a small island in Boston harbor. 



LETTERS. 48 

of-war came and anchored near Great Hill, and two cutters 
came to Pig Rocks. It occasioned an alarm in this town, 
and we were up all night. They remain there yet, but 
have not ventured to land any men. 

This town have chosen their representative. Colonel 
Palmer is the man. There was a considerable muster upon 
Thayer's side, and Vinton's company marched up in order 
to assist, but got sadly disappointed. Newcomb insisted 
upon it that no man should vote who was in the army. He 
had no notion of being under the military power; said we 
might be so situated as to have the greater part of the 
people engaged in the military, and then all power would 
be wrested out of the hands of the civil magistrate. He 
insisted upon its being put to vote, and carried his point 
immediately. It brought Thayer to his speech, who said 
all he could against it. 

As to the situation of the camps, our men are in general 
healthy, much more so at Roxbury than at Cambridge, and 
the camp is in vastly better order. General Thomas has 
the character of an excellent officer. His merit has cer- 
tainly been overlooked, as modest merit generally is. I 
hear General Washington is much pleased with his conduct. 

Every article here in the West India way is very scarce 
and dear. In six weeks we shall not be able to purchase 
any article of the kind. I wish you would let Bass get m^ 
one pound of pepper, and twb yards of black calamanco 
for shoes. 1 cannot wear leather, if I go barefoot. Bass\ 
.may make a fine profit if he lays in a stock for himself r 
' You can hardly imagine how much we want many common 
small articles, which are not manufactured amongst our- 
selves ; but we will have them in time ; not one pin to be 
purchased for love or money. I wish you could convey me 
a thousand by any friend travelling this way. It is very 
provoking to have such a plenty so near us, but, Tantalus- 
like, not be able to touch. I should have been glad to have 
laid in a small stock of the West India articles, but I cannot 
get one copper ; no person thinks of paying any thing, and . 
I do not choose to run in debt. I endeavour to live in the 



44 LETTERS. 

. most frugal manner possible — but I am many times dls- 

\tressed. 

We have, since I wrote you, had many fine showers, and, 
although the crops of grass have been cut short, we have a 

j fine prospect of Indian corn and English grain. Be not 

I afraid, ye beasts of the field, for the pastures of the wilder- 
ness do spring, the tree beareth her fruit, the vine and the 
I olive yield their increase. We have not yet been much 
distressed for grain. Every thing at present looks bloom- 
ing. that peace would once more extend her olive 
branch ; "~? 

" This day be bread and peace my lot ; 
All elsje beneath the sun, 
Thou knowesl if best bestowed or not, 
And let thy will be done." 

" But is the Almighty ever bound to please, 
Build by my wish, or studious of my ease ? 
Sliall I determine where liis frowns shall fall, 
And fence my grotto from the lot of all ? 
Prostrate, his sovereign wisdom I adore, 
Intreat his mercy, but I dare no more." 

I have now written you all I can collect from every 
quarter. 'T is fit for no eyes but yours, because you can 
make all necessary allowances. I cannot copy. 

There are yet in town three of the selectmen and some 
thousands of inhabitants, 't is said. I hope to hear from 
you soon. Do let me know if there is any prospect of see- 
ing you ? Next Wednesday is thirteen weeks since you 
went away. I must bid you adieu. 

You have many friends, though they have not noticed 
you by writing. I am sorry they have been so negligent. 
I hope no share of that blame lies upon 

Your most affectionate 

Portia. 



LETTERS, 45 



TO JOHN ADAMS. . 

\/ 

• Braintree, 25 July, 1775. 

I RECEIVED yours of July 7th/ for which 1 heartily thank 
you. It was the longest and best letter I have had ; the 
most leisurely, and therefore the most sentimental. Pre- \/ 
vious to your last, I had written you, and made some com- 
plaints of you, but I will take them all back again. Only 
continue your obliging favors, whenever your time will 
allow you to devote one moment to your absent Portia. 

This is the 25th of July. Gage has not made any 
attempts to march out since the battle at Charlestown. 
Our army is restless, and wish to be doing something to rid 
themselves and the land of the vermin and locusts which 
infest it. Since I wrote you last, the companies stationed 
upon the coast, both in this town, Weymouth, and Hingham, 
were ordered to Nantasket, to reap and bring off the grain, 
which they accomplished, all except a field or two which 
was not ripe ; and having whaleboats, they undertook to go 
to the Lighthouse and set fire to it, which they effected in 
open day, and in fair sight of several men-of-war. Upon 
their return, came down upon them eight barges, one cut- 
ter, and one schooner, all in battle array, and poured whole 
broadsides upon them ; but our men all reached the shore, 
and not one life lost, two only sHghtly wounded in their 
legs. They marched up a hill, and drew into order, in 
hopes the marines would land ; but they chose rather to 
return without a land engagement, though 't is thought they 
will burn the town down as soon as our forces leave it. I 
had this account from Captain Vinton, who with his com- 
pany were there. These little skirmishes seem trifling, but 
they serve to inure our men, and harden them to danger. 
I hear the rebels are very wroth at the destruction of the 
lighthouse. 

1 This letter will be found among those of Mr. Adams, published in 1841. 




46 LETTERS. 

There has been an offer from Gage to send the poor of . 
Boston to Salem, by water, but not complied with on our 
part ; they returned for answer, they would receive them 
upon the lines. Dr. Tufts saw a letter from Deacon New- 
all, in which he mentions the death of John Cotton ; he 
says it is very sickly in town. Every fishing vessel is now 
obliged to enter and clear out, as though she was going a 
foreign voyage. No inhabitant is suffered to partake, but 
obliged to wait till the army is supplied, and then, if one 
remains, they are allowed to purchase it. An order has 
been given out in town, that no person shall be seen to 
wipe his face with a white handkerchief. The reason I 
hear is, that it is a signal of mutiny. General Burgoyne 
lives in Mr. Sam Quincy's house. A lady, who lived 
opposite, says she saw raw meat cut and hacked upon her 
mahogany tables, and her superb damask curtain and 
cushions exposed to the rain, as if they were of no value. 
How much better do the Tories fare than the Whigs ? I 
suppose this worthy, good man was put in with all confi- 
dence that nothing should be hurt. 

I was very much pleased with General Lee's letter,' and 
really entertained a more favorable opinion of Burgoyne 
than I before had imbibed from his speech ; but a late letter 
from London, written to Mr. Josiah Quincy, and, in case of 
his absence, to be opened either by you or Mr. Samuel 
Adams, or either of the Warrens, has left me no room to 
think that he is possessed either of generosity, virtue, or 
humanity. His character runs thus : 

"As to Burgoyne,^ I am not master of language sufficient 
to give you a true idea of the horrible wickedness of the 
man. His designs are dark ; his dissimulation of the deep- 
est dye ; for, not content with deceiving mankind,' he prac- 
tises deceit on God himself, by assuming the appearance 

1 This correspondence between Lee and BurgojTie, is in '' The Remem- 
brancer," for 1775, pp. 150 et seq. 

2 Much allowance must occasionally be made for the excitement naturally 
growing out of the circumstances of the war. General Burgoyne by no 
means bore any such character as this. 



LETTERS. 47 

(like Hutchinson) of great attention to religious worship, 
when every action of his life is totally abhorrent to all ideas 
of true religion, virtue, or common honesty. An aban- 
doned, infamous gambler, of broken fortune, and the worst 
and most detestable of the Bedford gang, who are wholly 
bent on blood, tyranny, and spoil, and therefore the darling 
favorite of our unrivalled ruler, Lord Bute." 

The character of Howe is not drawn much more favora- 
bly, but Clinton's general character very good, and 't is said 
he does not relish the service he is sent upon. I am ready 
to believe this of Clinton, as I have never heard of any 
speeches of his since his arrival, nor scarcely any mention 
of him. That such characters as Burgoyne and Howe 
should engage in such a cause is not to be wondered at ; 
but it is really to be lamented, when a man, possessed of 
one spark of virtue, should be drawn aside, and disgrace 
himself and posterity by adding one more to the already 
infamous list. I suppose you have heard of Darby's arri- 
val,* and the intelligence he brings. I could not refrain 
wishing them everlasting fetters ; " the news received with 
some symptoms of pleasure," and " our friends increased," 
and a few more such sugar plums. Were they suffering as 
we are, could Americans sit thus coldly whilst Britons were 
bleeding ? How is it possible, that the love of gain and the 
lust of domination should render the human mind so callous 
to every principle of honor, generosity and benevolence ? 

May that day be far distant from America, when " trade's 
unfeeling train," shall " usurp this land, and dispossess the 



swam." 



" 111 fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, 
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay ; 
Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade ; 
A breath can make them, as a breath has made ; 
But a bold peasantry, their country's pride, 
When once destroyed, can never be supplied." 

Your address meets with general approbation here ; your 
petitioning the King again, pleases (forgive me if I say the 

' From England. 



48 LETTERS. 

timid and the weak) those persons who were esteemed the 
lukewarm, and who think no works of supererogation can 
be performed to Great Britain ; whilst others say you heap 
coals of fire upon the heads of your enemies. You know 
you are considered here as a most perfect body ; if one 
member is by any means rendered incapable of acting, 'tis 
supposed the deficiency will be made up. The query is, 
why your President left the Congress so long as to make it 
necessary to choose another member, — whether he de- 
clined returning to you again ? 

I suppose you have a Hst of our Council. It was gener- 
ally thought that Gage would make an attempt to come out 
either Election day, or upon the Fast ; but I could not be- 
lieve we should be disturbed upon that day. Even " the 
devils believe and tremble," and I really believe they are 
more afraid of the Americans' prayers than of their swords. 
I could not bear to hear our inanimate old bachelor. Mrs. 
Cranch and I took our chaise and went to hear Mr. Haven, 
of Dedham, and we had no occasion to repent eleven miles' 
ride ; especially as I had the pleasure of spending the day 
with my namesake and sister delegate. Why should we 
not assume your titles when we give you up our names ? 
I found her comfortably situated in a little country cottage, 
with patience, perseverance, and fortitude for her compan- 
ions, and in better health than she has enjoyed for many 
months past. 

I fear General Thomas being overlooked, and Heath 
placed over him, will create much uneasiness. I know not 
who was to blame, but it is likely to make a great and fatal 
gap in the army. If Thomas resigns, all his officers resign ; 
and Mr. Thomas cannot with honor hold under Heath. 
The camp will evince to every eye how good an officer he 
has been ; but this is out of my sphere. I only say what 
others say, and what the general disposition of the peo- 
ple is. 

I believe you will not complain that I do not write often 
enough, and at length enough. When you are tired, tell 
me. Pray make my compliments to Mr. Barrell for his 



LETTERS. 49 

great civility ' to Portia. I really feel very anxious at being 
exposed to any eyes but yours, whose partiality I have so 
often experienced to cover a multitude of faults, that I rely 
upon it with the utmost security. You will not fail letting 
me hear from you by every opportunity. 

I need not say how much I want to see you, but no one 
will credit my story of your returning in a month. I hope 
to have the best of proofs to convince them. 

It cannot need any to convince you how sincerely 
I am your affectionate 

Portia. 



TO JOHN ADAMS. 

Braintree, 31 July, 1775. 

I DO not feel easy more than two days together without 
writing to you. If you abound, you must lay some of the 
fault upon yourself, who have made such sad complaints for 
letters ; but I really believe I have written more than all my 
sister delegates. There is nothing new transpired since I 
wrote you last, but the sailing of some transports, and five 
deserters having come into our camp. One of them is gone, 
I hear, to Philadelphia. I think I should be cautious of him. 
No one can tell the secret designs of such fellows, whom 
no oath binds. He may be sent with assassinating designs. 
I can credit any villany, that a Ccesar Borgia would have 
been guilty of, or Satan himself would rejoice in. Those 
who do not scruple to bring poverty, misery, slavery, and 
death upon thousands, will not hesitate at the most diaboli- 
cal crimes ; and this is Britain. Blush, O Americans, that 
ever you derived your origin from such a race. 

We learn from one of these deserters, that our ever- 
valued friend, Warren, dear to us even in death, was not 

> His present of pins, as stated in Mr. Adams's letter, to which this is in 
answer. 

4 



50 LETTERS. 

treated with any more respect than a common soldier ; but 
the savage wretches, called officers, consulted together, and 
agreed to sever his head from his body and carry it in 
triumph to Gage, who no doubt would have " grinned hor- 
ribly a ghastly smile," instead of imitating Csesar, who, far 
from being gratified with so horrid a spectacle as the head 
even of his enemy, turned away from Pompey's with dis- 
gust, and gave vent to his pity in a flood of tears. How 
much does Pagan tenderness put Christian benevolence to 
shame ! What humanity could not obtain, the rites and 
ceremonies of a mason demanded. An officer, who, it 
seems, was one of the brotherhood, requested, that as a 
mason, he might have the body unmangled, and find a 
decent interment for it. He obtained his request, but, 
upon returning to secure it, he found it already thrown 
into the earth, only with the ceremony of being first placed 
there with many bodies over him : 

" Nor writ Iiis name, whose tomb should pierce the skies." 

" Glows my resentment into guilt ? What guilt 
Can equal violations of the dead ? 
The dead how sacred ! Sacred is the dust 
Of tliis heaven-labored form, erect, divine ! 
This heaven-assumed, majestic robe of earth." 

2 August. 

Thus far I wrote and broke off; hearing there was a 
probability of your return, I thought not to send it ; but the 
reception of yours' this morning, of July 23d, makes me 
think the day further off than I hoped. I therefore will add 
a few lines, though very unfit. I went out yesterday to 
attend the funeral of the poor fellow who, the night before, 
fell in battle, as they were returning from the lighthouse ; I 
caught some cold. Sabbath evening there was a warm fire 
from Prospect Hill and Bunker's Hill, begun first by the 
riflemen taking off their guard. Two men upon our side 
were killed ; five of their guards were killed, two taken. I 
believe my account will be very confused, but I will relate 

1 Letter of Mr. Adams, 23 July, 1775. 



LETTERS. 51 

it as well as I am able.' Sabbath evening a number of 
men, in whaleboats, went off from Squantum and Dorches- 
ter, to the lighthouse, where the general. Gage, had again 
fixed up a lamp, and sent twelve carpenters to repair it. 
Our people went on amidst a hot fire from thirty marines, 
who were placed there as a guard to the Tory carpenters, 
burnt the dwelling-house, took the Tories and twenty-eight 
marines, killed the lieutenant and one man, brought off all 
the oil and stores which were sent, without the loss of a 
man, until they were upon their return ; when they were so 
closely pursued, that they were obliged to run one whale- 
boat ashore, and leave her to them ; the rest arrived safe, 
except the unhappy youth, whose funeral I yesterday at- 
tended, who received a ball through the temple, as he was 
rowing the boat. He belonged to Rhode Island. His name 
was Griffin. He, with four wounded marines, was brought 
by Captain Turner to Germantown, and buried from there 
with the honors of war. Mr. Wibird, upon the occasion, 
made the best oration (he never prays, you know,) I ever 
heard from him. The poor wounded fellows (who were all 
wounded in their arms) desired they might attend. They 
did, and he very pathetically addressed them, with which 
they appeared affected. I spoke with them, — I told them, 
it was very unhappy that they should be obliged to fight 
their best friends. They said they were sorry ; they hoped 
in God an end would be speedily put to the unhappy con- 
test ; when they came, they came in the way of their duty, 
to relieve Admiral Montague, with no thought of fighting, 
but their situation was such as obliged them to obey orders ; 
but they wished, with all their souls, that they that sent 
them here had been in the heat of the battle ; expressed 
gratitude at the kindness they received ; and said in that 
they had been deceived, for they were told, if they were 
taken alive, they would be sacrificed by us. Dr. Tufts 
dressed their wounds. 

1 had a design to write something about a talked of ap- 

1 These events are briefly mentioned in " The Remembrancer," for the 
year 1775, pp. 269, 270. 



^ 



52 LETTERS. 

pointment of a friend of mine to a judicial department,' but 
hope soon to see tliat friend, before his acceptance may be 
necessary. I enclose a compliment, copied by a gentleman 
from a piece in the Worcester paper, signed " Lycurgus." 

I can add no more, as the good Colonel Palmer waits. 
Only my compliments to Mrs. Mifflin, and tell her I do not 
know whether her husband is safe here. Bellona and Cupid 
have a contest about him. You hear nothing from the ladies 
but about Major Mifflin's easy address, politeness, com- 
plaisance, &;c. 'T is well he has so agreeable a lady at 
Philadelphia. They know nothing about forts, intrench- 
ments, &c., when they return; or, if they do, they are all 
forgotten and swallowed up in his accomplishments. 

Adieu, my dearest friend, and always believe me 

Unalterably yours, 

Portia. 



TO JOHN ADAMS.* 

^ Weymouth, 1 October, 1775. 
Have pity upon me. Have pity upon me, O thou my be- 
loved, for the hand of God presseth me sore. 

Yet will I be dumb and silent, and not open my mouth, 
because thou, O Lord, hast done it. 

How can I tell you, (O my bursting heart !) that my dear 
mother has left me ? — this day, about five o'clock, she left 
this world for an infinitely better. 

After sustaining sixteen days' severe conflict, nature 
fainted, and she fell asleep. Blessed spirit ! where art 
thou ? At times, I am almost ready to faint under this 
severe and heavy stroke, separated from thee, who used to 
be a comforter to me in affliction ; but, blessed be God, his 

1 Mr. Adanis was made Chief Justice of the State Court, but never acted 
in that capacity. 

2 ]Mr. Adams was at home during the adjourmiient of Congress, from the 
first of August to the 5th of September. 



LETTERS. 53 

ear is not heavy that he cannot hear, but he has bid us call 
upon him in time of trouble. 

I know you are a sincere and hearty mourner with me, 
and will pray for me in my affliction. My poor father, like 
a firm believer and a good Christian, sets before his children 
the best of examples of patience and submission. My sis- 
ters send their love to you, and are greatly afflicted. You 
often expressed your anxiety for me when you left me 
before, surrounded with terrors ; but my trouble then was 
as the small dust in the balance, compared to what 1 have 
since endured. I hope to be properly mindful of the cor- 
recting hand, that I may not be rebuked in anger. 

You will pardon and forgive all my wanderings of mind, 
I cannot be correct. 

r 'T is a dreadful time with the whole province. Sickness 
and death are in almost every family. I have no more 
shocking and terrible idea of any distemper, except the 
plague, than this.' 

Almighty God ! restrain the pestilence which walketh in 
darkness and wasteth at noonday, and which has laid in the 
dust one of the dearest of parents. May the life of the 
other be lengthened out to his afflicted children. 

From your distressed 

Portia. 



TO JOHN ADAMS. 

Braintree, 21 October, 1775. V 

The sickness has abated here and in the neighbouring 
towns. In Boston I am told it is very sickly among the 
inhabitants and the soldiery. By a man, one Haskins, who 

1 The dysentery prevailed among the British troops, who were great 
sufferers from their confuiement in Boston, and it appears to have spread 
among the inhabitants in the vicinity. Mrs. Adams lost, besides her mother 
and a brother of her husband, a domestic in her own house ; but she and 
the rest of her family, who were all, with a single exception, more or less 
ill, recovered. 



I 



54 LETTERS. 

came out the day before yesterday, I learn, that there are 
but about twenty-five hundred soldiers in town. How many 
there are at Charlestown, he could not tell. He had been 
in irons three weeks, some malicious fellow having said 
that he saw him at the battle of Lexington ; but he proved 
that he was not out of Boston that day, upon which he was 
released, and went with two other men out in a small boatl 
under their eye to fish. They played about near the shore,! 
while catching small fish, till they thought they could possi-^ 
bly reach Dorchester Neck ; no sooner were they perceived 
attempting to escape, than they had twenty cannons dis- 
charged at them, but they all happily reached the shore. 
He says, no language can paint the distress of the inhabit- 
ants ; most of them destitute of wood and of provisions of 
every kind. The bakers say, unless they have a new 
supply of wood, they cannot bake above one fortnight 
longer ; their biscuit are not above one half the former size ; 
the soldiers are obliged to do very hard duty, and are 
uneasy to a great degree, many of them declaring they 
will not continue much longer in such a state, but at all 
hazards will escape. The inhabitants are desperate, and 
contriving means of escape. A floating battery of ours, 
went out two nights ago, and rowed near the town, and then 
discharged their guns. Some of the balls went into the 
workhouse, some through the tents in the Common, and one 
through the sign of the Lamb Tavern. He says, it drove 
them all out of the Common, men, women, and children 
screaming, and threw them into the utmost distress ; but, 
very unhappily for us, in the discharge of one of the can- 
non, the ball not being properly rammed down, it split and 
killed two men, and wounded seven more, upon which they 
were obliged to return. He also says, that the Tories are 
much distressed about the fate of Dr. Church, and very 
anxious to obtain him, and would exchange Lovell for him. 
This man is so exasperated at the ill usage he has received 
from them, that he is determined to enlist immediately. 
They almost starved him whilst he was in irons. He says, 
he hopes it will be in his power to send some of them to 



L 



LETTERS. 55 

heaven for mercy. They are building a fort by the hay- 
market, and rending down houses for timber to do it with. 
In the course of the last week, several persons have found 
means to escape. One of them says it is talked in town, 
that Howe will issue a proclamation, giving liberty to all, 
who will not take up arms, to depart the town, and making 
it death to have any intercourse with the country afterwards. 

At present it looks as if there was no likelihood of peace ; 
the ministry are determined to proceed at all events ; the 
people are already slaves, and have nehher virtue nor 
spirit to help themselves nor us. The time is hastening, 
when George, like Richard, may cry, " My kingdom for a 
horse ! " and want even that wealth to make the purchase. 
I hope by degrees, we shall be inured to hardships, and 
become a virtuous, valiant people, forgetting our former 
luxury, and each one apply with industry and frugality to 
manufactures and husbandry, till we rival all other nations 
by our virtues. 

I thank you for your amusing account of the Quaker ; 
their great stress with regard to color in their dress, &c., 
is not the only ridiculous part of their sentiments with 
regard to religious matters. 

" There 's not a day but to the man of thought 
Betrays some secret, that throws new reproach 
On hfe, and makes him sick of seeing more." 

What are your thoughts with regard to Dr. Church } Had 
you much knowledge of him } I think you had no inti- 
mate acquaintance with him. 

" A foe to God was ne'er true friend to man ; 
Some smister intent taints all he does." 

It is matter of great speculation what will be his punish- 
ment ; the people are much enraged against him ; if he is 
set at liberty, even after he has received a severe punish- 
ment, I do not think he will be safe. He will be despised 
and detested by every one, and many suspicions will remain 
in the minds of people in regard to our rulers ; they are for 



56 LETTERS. 

supposing this person is not sincere, and that one they have 
jealousy of. 

Have you any prospect of returning? I hoped to have 
heard from you by the gentlemen who came as a committee 
here ; but they have been here a week, and 1 have not any 
letters. 

My father and sister Betsey desire to be remembered to 
you. He is very disconsolate. It makes my heart ache to 
see him, and I know not how to go to the house. He said 
to me the other day, " Child, I see your mother, go to what 
part of the house I will." I think he has lost almost as 
much flesh as if he had been sick ; and Betsey, poor girl, 
looks broken and worn with grief. These near connexions, 
how they twist and cling about the heart, and when torn off, 
draw the best blood from it. 

" Each friend by fate snatched from us, is a plvune 
Plucked from the wing of hitman vanity." 

Be so good as to present my regards to Mrs. Hancock. 
I hope she is very happy. Mrs. Warren called upon me on 
her way to Watertown. I wish I could as easily come to 
you as she can go to Watertown. But it is my lot. In the 
twelve years we have been married, I believe we have not 
lived together more than six. 

If you could, with any conveniency, procure me the articles 
I wrote for, I should be very glad, more especially the nee- 
dles and cloth ; they are in such demand, that we are really 
distressed for want of them. 

Adieu. I think of nothing further to add, but that I .am, 
with the tenderest regard, your 

Portia. 



TO JOHN ADAMS. 



Braintree, 22 October, 1775. 

Mr. Lothrop called here this evening, and brought me 



LETTERS. 57 

yours' ' of the 1st of October ; a day whicli will ever be 
remembered by me, for it was the most distressing one I 
ever experienced. That morning I rose, and went into my 
mother's room, not apprehending her so near her exit ; went 
to her bed with a cup of tea in my hand, and raised her 
head to give it to her. She swallowed a few drops, gasped, 
and fell back upon her pillow, opening her eyes with a look 
that pierced my heart, and which 1 shall never forget ; it 
was the eagerness of a last look ; 

" Aiid O, the last sad silence of a friend." 

Yet she lived till five o'clock that day, but I could not be 
with her. My dear father prayed twice beside her bed that 
day. God Almighty was with him and supported him that 
day, and enabled him to go through the services of it. It 
was his communion day ; he had there a tender scene to 
pass through — a young granddaughter, Betsey Cranch, join- 
ing herself to the church, and a beloved wife dying, to pray 
for. Weeping children, weeping and mourning parishioners 
all round him, for every eye streamed, his own heart almost 
bursting as he spoke. How painful is the recollection, and 
yet how pleasing ! 

I know I wound your heart. Why should I .? Ought I 
to give relief to my own by paining yours ? Yet 

" the grief, that cannot speak, 
Wliispers the o'erfraught heart, and bids it break." 

My pen is always freer than my tongue. I have written 
many things to you that I suppose I never could have talked. 
My heart is made tender by repeated affliction ; it never was ' 
a hard heart. The death of Patty came very near me, 
having lived four years with me under my care. I hope it: 
will make me more continually mindful and watchful of all 
those who are still committed to my charge. 'T is a great 
trust ; I daily feel more and more of the weight and import 

1 See Mr. Adams's letter of that date, 



n/ 



>j 



58 LETTEES. 

ance of it, and of my own inability. I wish I could have 
more of the assistance of my dearest friend, but these peril- 
ous times swallow him up. 

Mr. Lothrop has given me this account of the demand 
upon Falmouth. A man-of-war and two tenders went down, 
and sent to the inhabitants to demand their arms, and re- 
quire them to stand neuter. They required time to consider ; 
they had until nine o'clock the next day, which time they 
employed in removing the women, children, and the rest of 
their most valuable effects, out of danger, when they sent 
their answer in the negative. Upon this, the enemy began 
a cannonade, and were continuing it when the express came 
away. Hitchbourne and another gentleman got out of town 
in a small boat, one of the foggy nights we have had this 
week. I have not heard what intelligence he brings. An- 
other person says, that Howe enlarged all the prisoners but 
Lovell, and he would not come out. 

I have since seen the Paraphrase,^ as it is called ; but 't is 
as low as the mock oration, ^ though no reflection upon your 
private character, further than immoderately whipping your 
scholars when you kept school ; a crime any one will acquit 
you of who knows you. As a specimen of the wit and hu- 
mor it contained, I will give you the title. " A Paraphrase 
upon the Second Epistle of John the Roundhead, to James, 
the Prolocutor of the Rump Parliament. Dear Devil," &c. 
I had it, but it was when I was in so much distress that I 
cared nothing about it. I will mention, when I see you, the 
foolish conjectures of some, who want always to be finding 
out something extraordinary in whatever happens. 

I hope to hear often from you, which is all the alleviation 
I have in your absence, and is, next to seeing you, the 
greatest comfort of your 

Portia. 



> Scurrilous publications, made by the Tories and British officers in Boston, 
during the siege. The first of these was a parapla-ase of an mtercepted letter 
of Mr. Adanis, to General James Wai-ren, then President of the Provincial 
Congress. 



LETTERS. 89 



TO JOHN ADAMS. 

5 November, 1775. 

I HOPE you have received several letters from me in this 
fortnight past. I wrote by Mr. Lynch and by Dr. Franklin, 
the latter of whom I had the pleasure of dining with, and 
of admiring him, whose character from my infancy I had 
been taught to venerate. I found him social but not talka- 
tive, and, when he spoke, something useful dropped from 
his tongue. He was grave, yet pleasant and affable. You 
know 1 make some pretensions to physiognomy, and I 
thought I could read in his countenance the virtues of his ^ 
heart, among which, patriotism shone in its full lustre ; and 
with that is blended every virtue of a Christian. For a true 
patriot must be a religious man. I have been led to think 
from a late defection,' that he who neglects his duty to his 
Maker, may well be expected to be deficient and insincere 
m his duty towards the public. Even suppose him to pos- 
sess a large share of what is called honor and public spirit, 
yet, do not these men, by their bad example, by a loose, im- 
moral conduct, corrupt the minds of youth, and vitiate the 
morals of the age, and thus injure the public more than 
they can compensate by intrepidity, generosity, and honor .^ 
Let revenge or ambition, pride, lust or profit, tempt these 
men to a base and vile action ; you may as well hope to 
bind up a hungiy tiger with a cobweb, as to hold such 
debauched patriots in the visionary chains of decency, or 
to charm them with the intellectual beauty of truth and 
reason. 

But where am I running ? I mean to thank you for all 
your obliging favors lately received ; and though some of 
them are veiy laconic, yet, were they to contain only two 
lines to tell me that you were well, they would be accept- 
able to me. I think, however, you are more apprehensive 

1 Of Dr. Church. 



60 LETTERS. 

than you need be ; the gentleman, to whose care they have 
always been directed, has been very kind in his conveyance, 
and very careful. I hope, however, that it will not now be 
long before we shall have nearer interviews. You must 
tell me, that you will return next month ; a late appoint- 
ment' will make it inconvenient (provided you accept) for 
you to go again to Congress. 

It seems human nature is the same in all ages and coun- 
tries. Ambition and avarice reign every where, and, where 
they predominate, there will be bickerings after places of 
honor and profit. There is an old adage, " Kissing goes by 
favor," that is daily verified. I inclose to you the paper 
you sent for. Your business in collecting facts will be very 
difficult, and the sufferings of this people cannot be de- 
scribed with pen, ink, and paper. Besides, these ministers 
of Satan are rendering it every day more and more difficult, 
by their ravages and devastation, to tell a tale which will 
freeze the young blood of succeeding generations, as well 
as harrow up the souls of the present. 

Nothing new has transpired since I wrote you last. I 
have not heard of one person's escape out of town, nor of 
any manoeuvre of any kind. 

I will only ask you to measure by your own the affec- 
tionate regard of your nearest friend.^ 



TO JOHN ADAMS. ^ 

Braintree, 12 November, 1775. ^ 

I RECEIVED yours 3 of 23d October. I want to hear from 
you every day, and I always feel sorry when I come to the 

1 That of Chief Justice, alluded to in a preceding letter. 

2 This letter is without signature, as was generally the case during the 
war, when a fictitious one was not attached. 

3 See Mr. Adams's letter of that date. 



LETTERS. 61 

close of a letter. Your time must be greatly engrossed — \^ 
but little of it to spare to the calls of private friendship, and \ 
I have reason to think I have the largest share of it. Win- 
ter makes its approaches fast. I hope I shall not be obliged 
to spend it without my dearest friend. I know not how to 
think of it. 

The intelligence' you will receive before this reaches 
you, will, I should think, make a plain path, though a dan- 
gerous one, for you. I could not join to-day, in the petitions 
of our worthy pastor, for a reconciliation between our no 
longer parent state, but tyrant state, and these colonies. 
Let us separate ; they are unworthy to be our brethren. 
Let us renounce them ; and instead of supplications, as 
formerly, for their prosperity and happiness, let us beseech 
the Almighty to blast thei^r counsels, and bring to nought all 
their devices. 

I have nothing remarkable to write you. A little skirmish 
happened last week ; the particulars I have endeavoured to 
collect, but whether I have the facts right, I am not certain. 
A number of cattle were kept at Lechmere's Point, where 
two sentinels were placed. In a high tide, it is an island ; 
the regulars had observed this, and a scheme was l^id to 
send a number of them over and take off the stock. Ac- 
cordingly a number of boats and about four hundred men 
were sent. They landed, it seems, unperceived by the 
sentinels, who were asleep ; one of whom they killed, and 
took the other prisoner. As soon as they were perceived, 
they fired the cannon from Prospect Hill upon them, which 
sunk one of their boats ; but, as the tide was very high, it 
was difficult getting over, and some time before any alarm 
was given. A Colonel Thompson, of the riflemen, marched 
instantly with his men ; and, though a very stormy day, 
they regarded not the tide nor waited for boats, but marched 
over neck high in water, and discharged their pieces, when 

1 Tliis probably alludes to the act passed by the Provincial Congress on 
the 10th of the month, to authorize privateering-. "The first avowal of 
oflensive hostility against the motlier country to be found in the annals of 
the revolution." Austin's Life of E. Gerry, Vol. i. p. 94, and Appendix A. 



( 

\ 
/ 



62 LETTERS. 

the regulars ran, without waiting to get off their stock, and 
made the best of their way to the opposite shore. ^ The 
General sent his thanks in a public manner to the brave 
officer and his men. Major Mifflin, I hear, was there, and 
flew about as though he would have raised the whole army. 
May they never find us deficient in courage and spirit. 

Dr. Franklin invited me to spend the winter in Philadel- 
phia. I shall wish to be there unless you return. I have 
been like a nun in a cloister, ever since j^ou went away, 
and have not been into any other house than my father's 
and sister's, except once to Colonel Quincy's. Indeed, I 
have had no inclination for company. My evenings are 
lonesome and melancholy. In the daytime family affairs 
take off my attention, but the evenings are spent with my 
departed parent. I then ruminate upon all her care and 
tenderness, and am sometimes lost and absorbed in a flood 
of tenderness, ere I am aware of it, or can call to my aid 
my only prop and support. I must bid you adieu; 'tis late 
at night. 

Most affectionately yours. 



TO JOHN ADAMS. 

^ 27 November, 1775. 
Colonel Warren returned last week to Plymouth, so that 
I shall not hear any thing from you until he goes back again, 
which will not be till the last of this month. He damped 
my spirits greatly by telling me, that the Court ^ had pro- 
longed your stay another month. I was pleasing myself 
with the thought, that you would soon be upon your return. 

I It is in vain to repine. I hope the public will reap what I 

( sacrifice. 

1 Tliis affair also is mentioned in " The Remembrancerj" for 1776, Vol. i. 
p. 229. 

2 The General Court of the Pro\ince. 



LETTERS. 63 

I wish 1 knew what mighty things were fabricating. If a 
form of government is to be established here, what one will 
be assumed ? Will it be left to our Assemblies to choose 
one ? And will not many men have many minds ? And 
shall we not run into dissensions among ourselves ? 

I am more and more convinced, that man is a dangerous 
creature ; and that power, whether vested in many or a few, 
is ever grasping, and, like the grave, cries " Give, give." 
The great fish swallow up the small ; and he, who is most 
strenuous for the rights of the people, when vested with 
power is as eager after the prerogatives of government. 
You tell me of degrees of perfection to which human nature 
is capable of arriving, and I believe it, but, at the same' 
time, lament that our admiration should arise from the 
scarcity of the instances. 

The building up a great empire, which was only hinted 
at by my correspondent, may now, I suppose, be realized 
even by the unbelievers. Yet, will not ten thousand diffi- 
culties arise in the formation of it? The reins of govern- 
ment have been so long slackened, that I fear the people 
will not quietly submit to those restraints, which are neces- 
sary for the peace and security of the community. If we 
separate from Britain, what code of laws will be established ? 
How shall we be governed, so as to retain our liberties ? 
Can any government be free, which is not administered by 
general stated laws ? Who shall frame these laws ? Who 
will give them force and energy ? It is true, your resolu- 
tions, as a body, have hitherto had the force of laws ; but 
will they continue to have .'' 

When I consider these things, and the prejudices of people 
in favor of ancient customs and regulations, I feel anxious 
for the fate of our monarchy or democracy, or whatever is 
to take place. I soon get lost in a labyrinth of perplexities ; 
but, whatever occurs, may justice and righteousness be the 
stability of our times, and order arise out of confusion. 
Great difficulties may be surmounted by patience and per- 
severance. 

I believe I have tired you with politics ; as to news we ) 



64 LETTERS. 

have not any at all. I shudder at the approach of winter, 
when I think I am to remain desolate. 

I must bid you good night; 'tis late for me, who am 
much of an invalid, I was disappointed last week in receiv- 
ing a packet by the post, and, upon unseahng it, finding 
only four newspapers. I think you are more cautious than 
you need be. AH letters, I believe, have come safe to 
hand. I have sixteen from you, and wish I had as many 
more. 

Adieu, yours. 



TO JOHN ADAMS. 

Braintree, 10 December, 1775. 

I RECEIVED your obliging favor by Mrs. Morgan, with the 
papers and the other articles you sent, which were very 
acceptable to me, as they are not to be purchased here. I 
shall be very choice of them. 

I have, according to your desire, been upon a visit to Mrs. 
Morgan, who keeps at Major Mifflin's. I had received a 
message from Mrs. Mifflin some time ago, desiring I would 
visit her. My father, who, you know, is very obliging in 
this way, accompanied me, and I had the pleasure of drink- 
ing coffee with the Doctor and his lady, the Major and his 
lady, and a Mr. and Mrs. Smith .from New York, a daugh- 
ter of the famous son of liberty. Captain Sears ; Generals 
Gates and Lee ; a Dr. M'Henry and a Mr. Elwyn, with 
many others who were strangers to me. I was very politely 
entertained, and noticed by the generals ; more especially 
General Lee, who was very urgent with me to tarry in 
town, and dine with him and the ladies present, at Hobgob- 
lin Hall, but I excused myself. The General was deter- 
mined, that I should not only be acquainted with him, but 
with his companions too, and therefore placed a chair before 
me, into which he ordered Mr. Spada to mount and pre- 



LETTERS. 65 

sent his paw to me for a better acquaintance. I could not 
do otherwise than accept it. " That, Madam," says he, " is 
the dog which Mr. has rendered famous." 

I was so little while in company with these persons, and 
the company so mixed, that it was almost impossible to form 
any judgment of them. The Doctor appeared modest, and 
his lady affable and agreeable. Major Mifflin, you know, I 
was always an admirer of, as well as of his delicate lady. 
I believe Philadelphia must be an unfertile soil, or it would} 
not produce so many unfruitful women. I always conceive 
of these persons as wanting one addition to their happiness ; 
but in these perilous times, I know not, whether it ought to 
be considered as an infelicity, since they are certainly freed 
from the anxiety every parent must feel for their rising off- . 
spring. 

I drank coffee one day with General Sullivan upon Win- 
ter Hill. He appears to be a man of sense and spirit. His 
countenance denotes him of a warm constitution, not to be 
very suddenly moved, but, when once roused, not very easily 
lulled, — easy and social, — well calculated for a militaiy 
station, as he seems to be possessed of those popular qualities, 
necessary to attach men to him. 

By the way, I congratulate you upon our late noble 
acquisition of military stores.' It is a most grand mortar, I 
assure you. Surely Heaven smiles upon us, in many 
respects, and we have continually to speak of mercies, as 
well as of judgments. I wish our gratitude may be anywise 
proportionate to our benefits. I suppose, in Congress, you 
think of every thing relative to trade and commerce, as well 
as other things ; but, as I have been desired to mention to 
you some things, I shall not omit them. One is, that there 
may be something done, in a Continental way, with regard 
to excise upon spirituous liquors, that each of the New Eng- 
land colonies may be upon the same footing ; whereas we 
formerly used to pay an excise, and the other colonies none, 
or very little, by which means they drew away our trade. 

1 By the capture of the brig Nancy, bomid for Boston, with ordnance from 
Woolwich. 

5 



% 

66 LETTERS. 

An excise is necessary, though it may be objected to by 
the mercantile interest, as a too frequent use of spirits 
endangers the wellbeing of society. Another article is, that 
some method may be devised to keep among us our gold 
and silver, which are now every day shipped off to the West 
Indies for molasses, coffee, and sugar ; and this I can say 
of my own knowledge, that a dollar in silver is now become 
a great rarity, and our traders will give you a hundred 
pounds of paper for ninety of silver, or nearly that propor- 
tion. If any trade is allowed to the West Indies, would it 
not be better to carry some commodity of our own produce 
in exchange ? Medicines, cotton wool, and some other arti- 
cles, we are in great want of. Formerly we used to pur- 
\chase cotton wool at one shilling, lawful money, per bag ; 
now it is three, and the scarcity of that article distresses us, 
|is it was wrought up with less trouble than any other article 
of clothing. Flax is now from a shilling tA one and sixpence 
per pound, sheep's wool eighteen pence, afnd linens not to 
be had at any price. I cannot mention the article in the 
English goods way, which is not double ; and, in the West 
India, molasses by retail I used formerly to purchase at one 
and eight pence, — now it is two and eight pence ; rum, 
three shillings ; coffee, one and three pence, and all other 
things in proportion. Corn is four shillings per bushel ; rye, 
five ; oats, three and eight pence ; hay, five and six shillings 
per hundred ; wood, twenty shillings per cord ; but meat of 
all kinds cheap. 

My uncle Quincy desires to be remembered to you ; he 
inquired when you talked of coming home. I told him you 
had not fixed any time. He says, if you don't come soon, 
he would advise me to procure another husband. He,^ of 
all persons, ought not to give me such advice, I told him, 
unless he set a better example himself. 

Be kind enough to burn this letter. It is written in great 

' Norton Quincy, the only son of Colonel John Quincy, and the uncle of 
Mrs. Adams, was married early. His wife died witliin the first year of the 
maiTiage, and the depth of his feelings at this bereavement was such as to 
make Max a recluse for Ufe. Hence the point of her remark. 



* 

LETTERS. 67 

haste, and a most Incorrect scrawl it Is. But I cannot con- 
clude without telling you, we are all very angry with your 
House of Assembly for their instructions.^ They raise pre- 
judices in the minds of people, and serve to create in their 
minds a terror at a separation from a people wholly unworthy 
of us. We are a little of the spaniel kind ; though so often 
spurned, still to fawn, argues a meanness of spirit, that, as 
an individual, I disclaim, and would rather endure any hard- 
ship than submit to it. 

Yours. 



TO JOHN ADAMS. 

Saturday Evening, 2 March, 1776. V 

I "WAS greatly rejoiced, at the return of your servant, to find 
you had safely arrived, and that you were well. I had 
never heard a word from you aft©r you had left New York, 
and a most ridiculous story had been industriously propaga- 
ted in this and the neighbouring towns to injure the cause and 
blast your reputation ; namely, that you and your President - 
had gone on board of a man-of-war from New York, and 
sailed for England. I should not mention so idle a report, 
but that it had given uneasiness to some of your friends ; not 
that they, in the least, credited the report, but because the 
gaping vulgar swallowed the story. One man ^ had deserted 
them and proved a traitor, another might, &;c. I assure you, 
such high disputes took place in the public house of this 
parish, that some men were collared and dragged out of the 
shop with great threats, for reporting such scandalous lies, 
and an uncle of ours offered his life as a forfeit for you, if the 

1 It is a little donbtftil to what this alludes. Probably to the application 
made by New Hampshire to Congress, for advice to establish a form of gov- 
ernment for itself This advice was given, although not without reluctance. 
A number of the members opposed it, as being too decisive a step towards 
independence. — See Gordon's " History," Vol. ii. p. 150. 

2 John Hancock. 3 Dr. Church. 



68 LETTERS. 

report proved true. However, it has been a nine days' 
marvel, and will now cease. I heartily wish every Tory 
was extirpated from America ; they are continually, by se- 
cret means, undermining and injuring our cause. 

I am charmed with the sentiments of " Common Sense," 
and wonder how an honest heart, one who wishes the wel- 
fare of his country and the happiness of posterity, can hes- 
itate one moment at adopting them. I want to know how 
these sentiments are received in Congress. I dare say 
there would be no difficulty in procuring a vote and instruc- 
tions from all the Assemblies in New England for Indepen- 
dency. I most sincerely wish, that now, in the lucky 
moment, it might be done. 

I have been kept in a continual state of anxiety and ex- 
pectation, ever since you left me. It has been said " to- 
y^morrow" and "to-morrow," for this month, but when the 
dreadful to-morrow will be, I know not. But hark ! The 
house this instant shakes with the roar of cannon. I have 
been to the door, and find it is a cannonade from our army. 
Orders, I find, are come, for all the remaining militia to 
repair to the lines Monday night by twelve o'clock. No 
sleep for me to-night. And if I cannot, who have no guilt 
upon my soul with regard to this cause, how shall the 
miserable wretches, who have been the ' procurers of this 
dreadful scene, and those who are to be the actors, lie 
down with the load of guilt upon their souls .'' 

Sunday Evening, 3 March. 

I went to bed after twelve, but got no rest ; the cannon 
continued firing, and my heart beat pace with them all 
night. We have had a pretty quiet day, but what to-mor- 
Tow will bring forth, God only knows. 

Monday Evening. 

Tolerably quiet. To-day the militia have all mustered, 
with three days' provision, and are all marched by three 
o'clock this afternoon, though their notice was no longer 
ago than eight o'clock, Saturday. And now we have 



LETTERS. 69 

scarcely a man, but our regular guards, either In Wey- 
mouth, Hingham, Braintree, or Milton, and the militia from 
the more remote towns are called in as seacoast guards. 
Can you form to yourself an idea of our sensations ? 

I have just returned from Penn's Hill, where I have been 
sitting to hear the amazing roar of cannon, and from whence 
I could see every shell which was thrown. The sound, I 
think, is one of the grandest in nature, and is of the true 
species of the sublime. 'T is now an incessant roar ; but 
O ! the fatal ideas, which are connected with the sound ! 
How many of our dear countrymen must fall ! 

Tuesday Morning. 

I went to bed about twelve, and rose again a little after' 
one. I could no more sleep, than if I had been in the 
engagement ; the rattling of the windows, the jar of the ^. 
house, the continual roar of twenty-four pounders, and the 
bursting of shells, give us such ideas, and realize a scene 
to us of which we could form scarcely any conception. 
About six, this morning, there was quiet. I rejoiced in a 
few hours' calm. I hear we got possession of Dorchester 
Hill last night ; four thousand men upon it to-day ; lost but 
one man. The ships are all drawn round the town. To- 
night we shall realize a more terrible scene still. I some- 
times think I cannot stand it. I wish myself with you, out 
of hearing, as I cannot assist them. I hope to give you joy 
of Boston, even if it is in ruins, before I send this away. I 
am too much agitated to write as I ought, and languid for 
want of rest. 

Thursday. Fast-day. 

All my anxiety and distress is at present at an end. I 
feel disappointed. This day our militia are all returning, 
without effecting any thing more than taking possession of 
Dorchester Hill. I hope it is wise and just, but, from alli 
the muster and stir, I hoped and expected more important i 
and decisive scenes. I would not have suffered all I have ) 
for two such hills. Ever since the taking of that, we have 



70 LETTERS. 

had a perfect calm : nor can* I learn yet, what effect it has 
had in Boston. I do not hear of one person's escaping 
since. 

I was very much pleased with your choice of a committee 
for Canada. All those to whom I have ventured to show 
that part of your letter,' approve the scheme of the priest, 
as a master stroke of policy. I feel sorry that General 
Lee has left us, but his presence at New York was no 
doubt of great importance, as we have reason to think it 
prevented Clinton from landing and gathering together such 
a nest of vermin, as would at least have distressed us greatly. 
But how can you spare him from here? Can you make 
his place good ? Can you supply it with a man equally 
qualified to save us ? How do the Virginians relish the 
troops said to be destined for them ? Are they putting 
themselves into a state of defence ? I inclose to you a 
copy of a letter sent by Captain Furnance, who is in Mr. 
Ned Church's employ, and who came into the Cape about 
ten days ago. You will learn the sentiments of our cousin 
by it. Some of which may be true, but I hope he is a 
much better divine than politician. I hear that in one of 
his letters, he mentions certain intercepted letters* which 
he says have made much noise in England, and laments 
that you ever wrote them. I cannot bear to think of your 
continuing in a state of supineness this winter. 

" There is a tide in the aflairs of men, 
Wliich, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune ; 
Omitted, all the voyage of their Ufa 
Is bound in shallows and in miseries. 
On such a full sea are we now afloat ; 
And we must take the current when it serves, 
Or lose our ventures." 

^ See Mr.. Adams's letter, 18 February, 1776. The members chosen on 
the conunittee, were Dr. Frankhn, Mr. Sanmel Chase, and Mr. Charles Car- 
roll, of CarroUton. At the same time it was " Resolved, That Mr. Carroll 
be requested to prevail on Mr. John Carroll to accompany the con^mittee to 
Canada, to assist them in such matters as they shall tliink useful." — Journal 
of Congress, February 15th, 1776. 

2 Some account of these letters, which are several times alluded to in tliis 
correspondence, will be fotmd in the Appendix to the first volume of the let- 
ters of Mr. Adams. 



LETTERS. 71 

Sunday Evening, 10 March. 

I had scarcely finished these lines when my ears were V 
again assaulted by the roar of cannon. I could not write 
any further. My hand and heart will tremble at this 
" domestic fury and fierce civil strife," which " cumber all " 
our " parts ; " though " blood and destruction " are " so much 
in use," " and dreadful objects so familiar," yet is not '* pity 
choked," nor my heart grown callous. I feel for the 
unhappy wretches, who know not where to fly for safety. I 
feel still more for my bleeding countrymen, who are hazard- 
ing their lives and their limbs. A most terrible and inces- 
sant cannonade from half after eight till six this morning. 
I hear we lost four men killed, and some wounded, in 
attempting to take the hill nearest the town, called Nook's 
Hill. We did some work, but the fire from the ships beat 
ofi* our men, so that they did not secure it, but retired to the 
fort upon the other hill. 

I have .not got all the particulars ; I wish I had ; but, 
as I have an opportunity of sending this, I shall endeavour 
to be more particular in my next. 

If there are reinforcements here, I believe we shall be 
driven from the seacoast ; but, in whatever state I am, I 
will endeavour to be therewith content. 

, " Man wants but little here below, 

Nor wants that little long." 

You will excuse this very incorrect letter. You see in 
what perturbation it has been written, and how many times 
I have left off. Adieu. Yours. 

P. S. Took's grammar is the one you mention. 



TO JOHN ADAMS. 

Braintree, 7 April, 1776. 

I HAVE received two letters from you this week. One of 
the 17th, and the other the 19th of March.* I believe I have 

1 See both these letters among those of Mr. Adams. 



72 LETTERS. 

received all your letters except one you mention writing 
from Framingham, which I never heard of before. I have 
received all the papers you have sent, the oration and the 
magazines. In the small papers I sometimes find pieces 
begun and continued, (for instance, Johnston's speech,) but 
am so unlucky as not to get the papers in order, and miss 
of seeing the whole. 

The removal of the army seems to have stopped the cur- 
rent of news. I want to know to what part of America 
they are now wandering. It is reported and credited, that 
Manly has taken a schooner belonging to the fleet, richly 
laden with money, plate, and English goods, with a number 
of Tories. The particulars I have not yet learned. Yes- 
terday the remains of our worthy General Warren were 
dug up upon Bunker's hill, and carried into town, and on 
Monday are to be interred with all the honors of war. 

10 April. 

The Doctor was buried on Monday ; the masons walking 
in procession from the Statehouse, with the military in 
uniforms, and a large concourse of people attending. He 
was carried into the Chapel, and there a funeral dirge was 
played, an excellent prayer by Dr. Cooper, and an oration 
by Mr. Morton, which I hope will be printed. I think the 
subject must have inspired him. A young fellow could not 
have wished a finer opportunity to display his talents. The 
amiable and heroic virtues of the deceased, recent in the 
minds of the audience ; the noble cause to which he fell a 
martyr ; their own sufferings and unparalleled injuries, all 
fresh in their minds, must have given weight and energy to 
whatever could be delivered upon the occasion. The dead 
body, like that of Csesar, before their eyes, whilst each 
wound, 

" like dumb mouths, did ope their ruby lips, 
To beg the voice and utterance of a tongrie. 
Woe to the hands that shed this costly blood, 
A curse shall light " upon their line.* 

' Tlie quotations from Shakspeare's " Julius Caesar," so frequently to be 
met with in tliis and the preceding letter, betray as strongly the historical 



LETTERS. 73 



11 April. 

..^ I take my pen and write just as I can get time ; my let- 
ters will be a strange mixture. I really am " cumbered \ 
about many things," and scarcely know which way to turn 
myself, j I miss my partner, and find myself unequal to the i 
cares which fall upon me./ I find it necessary to be the 
directress of our husbandly. I hope in time to have the 
reputation of being as good a farmeress, as my partner has- 
of being a good statesman. To ask you any thing about[ 
your return, would, I suppose, be asking a question which 
you cannot answer. 

Retirement, riTra! quiet, domestic pleasures, all, all, must 
give place to the weighty cares of state. It would be 

" meanly poor in solitude to hide 
An honest zeal, un warped by party rage." 

" Thouirh certain pains attend the cares of state, 
A good man owes his country to be great, 
Should act abroad the high distinguished part, 
And show, at least, the purpose of his heart." 

I hope your Prussian general ' will answer the high char- 
acter which is given of him. But we, who have been bred 
in a land of liberty, scarcely know how to give credit to so 
unjust and arbitrary a mandate of a despot. To cast off a 
faithful servant only for being the unhappy bearer of ill news, 
degrades the man, and dishonors the prince. The Congress, 
by employing him, have shown a liberality of sentiment, not 
confined to colonies or continents, but, to use the words of 
" Common Sense," have " carried their friendship on a 
larger scale, by claiming brotherhood with every European 
Christian, and may justly triumph in the generosity of the 
sentiment." 

precedents to which the mind of the writer at this time inclined, as the 
signature which she assumed. 

The Baron de Woedtke, who was appointed by Congress a brigadier 
general on tiie 16th of March, and ordered to Canada. He died shortly 
afterwards, at Lake George. — See Sparks's edition of " Washington's "Writ- 
ings," Vol. iv. p. 6, 7iote. See also the letter to wliich this is an answer. 



74 LETTERS. 

Yesterday, was taken and carried into Cohasset, by three 
whaleboats, who went from the shore on purpose, a snow 
from the Grenadas, laden with three hundred and fifty-four 
puncheons of West India rum, forty-three barrels of sugar, 
twelve thousand and five hundred weight of coffee ; a valu- 
able prize. A number of Eastern sloops have brought wood 
into town since the fleet sailed. We have a rumor of Ad- 
miral Hopkins being engaged with a number of ships and 
tenders off Rhode Island ; and are anxious to know the event. 

Be so good as to send me a list of the vessels which sail 
with Hopkins, their names, weight of metal, and number of 
men ; all the news you know, &c. 

I hear our jurors refuse to serve, because the writs are 
issued in the King's name. Surely, they are for independ- 
ence. 

Write me how you do this winter. I want to say many 
things I must omit. It is not fit " to wake the soul by ten- 
der strokes of art," or to ruminate upon happiness we might 
enjoy, lest absence become intolerable. 

Adieu. Yours. 

I wish you would burn all my letters. 



I 



TO JOHN ADAMS. 

Braintree, 7 May, 1776. 

How many are the solitary hours I spend, ruminating upon 
the past, and anticipating the future, whilst you, overwhelmed 
with the cares of state, have but a few moments you can de- 
vote to any individual. All domestic pleasures and enjoy- 
ments are absorbed in the great and important duty you owe 
your country, " for our country is, as it were, a secondary 
god, and the first and greatest parent. It is to be preferred 
to parents, wives, children, friends, and all things, the gods 
only excepted ; for, if our country perishes, it is as impos- 



LETTERS. 75 

sible to save an individual, as to preserve one of the fingers! 
of a mortified hand." Thus do 1 suppress every wish, and ( 
silence every murmur, acquiescing in a painful separation! 
from the companion of my youth, and the friend of my 
heart. 

1 believe 't is near ten days since I wrote you a line. I 
have not felt in a humor to entertain you. If I had taken 
up my pen perhaps some unbecoming invective might have 
fallen from it. The eyes of our rulers have been closed, 
and a lethargy has seized almost every member. I fear a 
fatal security has taken possession of them. Whilst the 
building is in flames, they tremble at the expense of water 
to quench it. In short, two months have elapsed since the 
evacuation 'of Boston, and very little has been done in that 
time to secure it, or the harbour, from future invasion. The 
people are all in a flame, and no one among us, that I have 
heard o(, even mentions expense. They think, universally, 
that there has been an amazing neglect somewhere. 
Many have turned out as volunteers to work upon Noddle's 
Island, and many more would go upon Nantasket, if the bus- 
iness was once set on foot. " 'T is a maxim of state, that 
power and liberty are like heat and moisture. Where they 
are well mixed, every thing prospers ; where they are single, 
they are destructive." 

A government of more stability is much wanted in this 
colony, and they are ready to receive it from the hands of 
the Congress. And since I have begun with maxims of 
state, I will add another, namely, that a people may let a 
king fall, yet still remain a people ; but, if a king let his 
people slip from him, he is no longer a king. And as this is 
most certainly our case, why not proclaim to the world, in 
decisive terms, your own importance ? 

Shall we not be despised by foreign powers, for hesitating 
so long at a word ? 

I cannot say, that I think you are very generous to the 
ladies ; for, whilst you are proclaiming peace and good-will 
to men, emancipating all nations, you insist upon retaining 
an absolute power over wives. But you must remember, 






76 LETTERS. 

that arbitrary power is like most other things which are very 
hard, very liable to be broken ; and, notwithstanding all your 
wise laws and maxims, we have it in our power, not only to 
free ourselves, but to subdue our masters, and, without vio- 
lence, throw both your natural and legal authority at our 
feet ; — 

" Charm by accepting, by submitting sway, 
Yet have our humor most when we obey." 

I thank you for several letters which I have received 
since I wrote last ; they alleviate a tedious absence, and I 
long earnestly for a Saturday evening, and experience a 
similar pleasure to that which I used to find in the return of 
my friend upon that day after a week's absence. The idea 
of a year dissolves all my philosophy. 

Our little ones, whom you so often recommend to my 
care and instruction, shall not be deficient in virtue or pro- 
bity, if the precepts of a mother have their desired effect ; 
but they would be doubly enforced, could they be indulged 
with the example of a father alternately before them. I 
often point them, to their sire, 

" engaged in a corrupted state, 
Wrestling with \-ice and faction." 

9 May. 

I designed to have finished the sheet, but, an opportunity 
offering, I close, only just informing you that. May the 7lh, 
our privateers took two prizes in the bay, in fair sight of the 
man-of-war ; one, a brig from Ireland ; the other from 
Fayal, loaded with wine, iDrandy, &c. ; the other with beef, 
&c. The wind was east, and a flood tide, so that the ten- 
ders could not get out, though they tried several times ; 
the lighthouse fired signal guns, but all would not do. They 
took them in triumph, and carried them into Lynn. 

Pray be kind enough to remember me at all times, and 
write, as often as you possibly can, to your 

Portia. 



LETTERS. 77 



TO JOHN ADAMS. 

Plymouth, 17 June, 1776, a remarkable day. 

I THIS day received by the hands of our worthy friend} 
a large packet, which has refreshed and comforted me. 
Your own sensations have ever been similar to mine, l 
need not then tell you how gratified I am at the frequent i 
tokens of remembrance with which you favor me, nor how 
they rouse every tender sensation of my soul, which some- 
times will find vent at my eyes. Nor dare I describe how 
earnestly! long to fold to my fluttering heart the object of ' 
my warmest affections ; the idea soothes me. I feast upon 
it with a pleasure known only to those whose hearts and 
hopes are one. ; 

The approbation you give to my conduct in the manage- 
ment of our private affairs, is very grateful to me, and suffi- 
ciently compensates for all my anxieties and endeavours to 
discharge the many duties devolved upon me in consequence 
of the absence of my dearest friend. Were they discharged 
according to my wishes, 1 should merit the praises you be- 
stow. 

You see I date from Plymouth. I came upon a visit to 
our amiable friends, accompanied by my sister Betsey, a 
day or two ago. It is the first night I have been absent 
since you left me. Having determined upon this visit for 
some time, I put my family in order and prepared for it, 
thinking I might leave it with safety. Yet, the day I set out, 
I was under many apprehensions, by the coming in of ten 
transports, who were seen to have many soldiers on board, 
and the determination of the people to go and fortify upon 
Long Island, Pettick's Island, Nantasket, and Great Hill. 
It was apprehended they would attempt to land somewhere, 
but the next morning I had the pleasure to hear they were 
all driven out. Commodore and all ; not a transport, a ship, 
or a tender to be seen. This shows what might have been 
long ago done. Had this been done in season, the ten 



7S LETTERS. 

transports, with many others, in all probability would 
have fallen into our hands ; but the progress of wisdom is 
slow. 

Since I arrived here I have really had a scene quite 
novel to me. The brig Defence^ from Connecticut, put in 
here for ballast. The officers, who are all from thence, 
and who are intimately acquainted at Dr. Lothrop's, invited 
his lady to come on board, and bring with her as many of 
her friends as she could collect. She sent an invitation to 
our friend, Mrs. Warren, and to us. The brig lay about 
a mile and a half from town. The officers sent their barge, 
and we went. Every mark of respect and attention which 
was in their power, they showed us. She is a fine brig, 
mounts sixteen guns, twelve swivels, and carries one hun- 
dred and twenty men. A hundred and seventeen were on 
board, and no private family ever appeared under better 
regulation than the crew. It was as still as though there 
had been only half a dozen ; not a profane word among 
any of them. The captain himself is an exemplary man ; 
(Harden his name) has been in nine sea engagements; 
says if he gets a man who swears, and finds he cannot 
reform him, he turns him on shore, yet is free to confess, 
that it was the sin of his youth. He has one lieutenant, a 
very fine fellow, Smelden by name. We spent a very 
agreeable afternoon, and drank tea on board. They showed 
us their arms, which were sent by Queen Anne, and every 
thing on board was a curiosity to me. They gave us a 
mock engagement with an enemy, and the manner of taking 
a ship. The young folks went upon the quarter deck and 
danced. Some of their Jacks played very well upon the 
violin and German flute. The brig bears the Continental 
colors, and was fitted out by the Colony of Connecticut. 
As we set off" from the brig, they fired their guns in honor 
of us, a ceremony I would very readily have dispensed 
with. 

I pity you, and feel for you under all the difficulties you 
have to encounter. My daily petitions to Heaven for you 
are, that you may have health, wisdom, and fortitude suffi- 



LETTERS. 79 

cient to carry you through the great and arduous business 
in which you are engaged, and that your endeavours may 
be crowned with success. Canada seems a dangerous and 
ill-fated place. It is reported here, that General Thomas 
is no more, that he took the smallpox, and died with it. 
Every day some circumstance arises, which shows me the 
importance of having the distemper in youth. Dr. Bulfinch 
has petitioned the General Court for leave to open a hospi- 
tal somewhere, and it will be granted him. I shall, with 
all the children, be one of the first class, you may depend 
upon it. 

I have just this moment heard, that the brig, which I was 
on board of on Saturday, and which sailed yesterday morn- 
ing from this place, fell in with two transports, having each 
of them a hundred and fifty men on board, and took them, 
and has brought them into Nantasket Roads, under cover 
of the guns which are mounted there. I will add further 
particulars as soon as I am informed. 

I am now better informed, and will give you the truth. 
The brig Defence^ accompanied by a small privateer, sailed 
in concert Sunday morning. About twelve o'clock they 
discovered two transports, and made for them. Two pri- 
vateers, which were small, had been in chase of them, but 
finding the enemy was of much larger force, had run under 
Cohasset rocks. The Defence gave a signal gun to bring 
them out. Captain Burk, who accompanied the Defence^ 
being a prime sailer, he came up first, and poured a broad- 
side on board a sixteen gun brig. The Defence soon at- 
tacked her upon her bows. An obstinate engagement en- 
sued. There was a continual blaze upon all sides for many 
hours, and it was near midnight before they struck. In the 
engagement, the Defence lost one man, and five wounded. 
With Burk, not one man received any damage ; on board 
the enemy, fourteen killed, among whom was a major, and 
sixty wounded. They are part of the Highland soldiers. 
The other transport mounted six guns. When the fleet 
sailed out of this harbor last week, they blew up the light- 
house. They met six transports coming in, which they 



80 LETTERS. 

carried off with them. I hope we shall soon be in such a 
posture of defence, as to bid them defiance. 

I feel no great anxiety at the large armament designed 
against us. The remarkable interpositions of Heaven in 
our favor cannot be too gratefully acknowledged. He who 
fed the Israelites in the wilderness, " who clothes the lilies 
of the field, and feeds the young ravens when they cry," 
will not forsake a people engaged in so righteous a cause, 
if we remember his loving-kindness. We wanted powder, 
— we have a supply. We wanted arms, — we have been 
favored in that respect. We wanted hard money, — twen- 
ty-two thousand dollars, and an equal value in plate, are 
delivered into our hands. 

You mention your peas, your cherries, and your straw- 
berries, &c. Ours are but just in blossom. We have had 

(the coldest spring I ever knew. Things are three weeks be- 
hind what they generally used to be. The corn looks poor. 

(The season now is rather dry. I believe I did not under- 
stand you, when in a former letter' you said, " I want to 

i resign my office, for a thousand reasons." If you mean 

, that of judge, I know not what to say. I know it will be a 

( difficult and arduous station; but, divesting myself of private 
interest, which would lead me to be against your holding 

f that office, I know of no person who is so well calculated 
to discharge the trust, or who I think would act a more 

( conscientious part. 



TO MRS. WARREN.^ 



DEAR MAECIA. 

Mr. Morton has given me great pleasure this morning by 
acquainting me with the appointment of our worthy friend 

1 See Mr. Adams's letter, dated 12 May, 1776. 

2 This letter is without date. James Warren was appointed in 1776 
one of the Judges of the Superior Court of Massachusetts, and not long 
after John Adams had been made Cliief Justice. They both declined the 



LETTERS. 81 

to the Bench. Have I any influence with him ? If I have 
I beg he would accept. I know very well what he will 
say ; but he has long been accustomed to Courts, and the 
office he held led him to some acquaintance with law, and 
his own abilities will easily qualify him to fill the place 
with dignity. If he refuses, it will bring a contempt upon 
the place. — To have those offices bandied about from hand 
to hand may give the world just occasion to say that they 
are not considered of any importance. I know the service 
of his country is his chief aim ; and he who is upon princi- 
ple desirous of it cannot fail of the important end. I need 
not add how much pleasure it will give to my particular 
friend and to your 

Portia. 



TO JOHN ADAMS. 

29 September, 1776. 

Not since the 6th of September,' have I had one line from 
you, which makes me very uneasy. Are you all this time 
conferring with his Lordship ? Is there no cor.imunication ? 
or, are the post-riders all dismissed ? Let t he cause be 
what it will, not hearing from you has given n 3 much un- 
easiness. 

We seem to be kept in total ignorance of affairs at York. 
I hope you at Congress are more enlightened. Who fell, 
who are wounded, who prisoners or their number, is as un- 
determined as it was the day after the battle.^ If our army 
is in ever so critical a state I wish to know it, and the worst 

posts. Of Genera] Warren, the originator of the system of Corresponding' 
Committees of tlie Revolution, and for a long time prominent in the politi- 
cal history of Massachusetts, it is to be regretted thai the memory should be 
sufiered to decay. 

1 See Mr. Adams's letter of that' date. Dr. Franklin, Mr. John Adams, 
and Mr. Rutledge, were elected a Committee on the part of Congress, to 
confer with Lord Howe, respecting liis powers to treat. — Journals of Con- 
gress, September Glh, ll"?^. 

2 On Long Island. 



82 LETTERS. 

of it. If all America is to be ruined and undone by a pack 
of cowards and knaves, I wish to know it. Pitiable is the 
lot of their commander. Csesar's tenth legion never was 
forgiven. We are told for truth, that a regiment of York- 
ers refused to quit the city ; and, that another regiment 
behaved like a pack of cowardly villains by quitting their 
posts. If they are unjustly censured, it is for want of pro- 
per intelligence. 

I am sorry to see a spirit so venal prevailing everywhere. 
When our men were drawn out for Canada, a very large 
bounty was given them ; and now another call is made upon 
us ; no one will go without a large bounty, though only for 
two months, and each town seems to think its honor engaged 
in outbidding the others. The province pay is forty shil- 
lings. In addition to that, this town voted to make it up six 
pounds. They then drew out the persons most unlikely to 
go, and they are obliged to give three pounds to hire a man. 
Some pay the whole fine, ten pounds. Forty men are now 
drafted from this town. More than one half, from sixteen 
to fifty, are now in the service. This method of conduct- 
ing will create a general uneasiness in the Continental army. 
I hardly think you can be sensible how much we are thin- 
ned in this province. 

The rage for privateering is as great here as anywhere. 
Vast numbers are employed in that way. If it is necessary 
to make any more drafts upon us, the women must reap the 
harvests. I am willing to do my part. I believe I could 
gather corn, and husk it ; but I should make a poor figure 
at digging potatoes. 

There has been a report, that a fleet was seen in our bay 
yesterday. I cannot conceive from whence, nor do I be- 
lieve the story. 

'T is said you have been upon Staten Island to hold your] 
conference. 'Tis a little odd, that I have never receivedj 
the least intim^ion of it from you. Did you think I should 
be alarmed .? Don't you know me better than to think me 
a coward ? I hope you will write me every thing concern- 
ing this affair. I have a great curiosity to know the result. 



LETTERS. 83 

As to government, nothing is yet done about it. The 
Church is opened here every Sunday, and the King prayed 
for, as usual, in open defiance of Congress. 

If the next post does not bring me a letter, I think I will 
leave off writing, for I shall not believe you get mine. 

Adieu. Yours, . 

P. S. Master John has become post-rider from Boston 
to Braintree. 



TO JOHN ADAMS. 

30 July, 1777. 

I DARE say, before this time, you have interpreted the 
Northern Storm. If the presages chilled your blood, how 
must you be frozen and stiffened at the disgrace brought 
upon our arms ! ' unless some warmer passion seize you, 
and anger and resentment fire your breast. How are all 
our vast magazines of cannon, powder, arms, clothing, pro- 
vision, medicine, &c., to be restored to us.'' But, what is 
vastly more, how shall the disgrace be wiped away ? How 
shall our lost honor be retrieved ? The reports with regard 
to that fortress are very vague and uncertain. Some write 
from thence, that there was not force sufficient to defend it. 
Others say it might have stood a long siege. Some there 
are, who ought to know why and wherefore we have given 
away a place of such importance. 

That the inquiry will be made, I make no doubt ; and, if 
cowardice, guilt, deceit, are found upon any one, howso- 
ever high or exalted his station, may shame, reproach, 
infamy, hatred, and the execrations of the public, be his 
portion. * 

I would not be so narrow-minded, as to suppose, that 

1 The evacuation of Ticonderoga and Mount Independence, by General 
St. Clair. 



84 LETTERS. 

there are not many men of all nations, possessed of honor, 
vh'tue, and integrity ; yet, it is to be lamented, that we 
have not men among ourselves, sufficiently qualified for 
war, to take upon them the most important command. 

It was customary among the Carthao-inians, to have a 
military school, in which the flower of their nobility, and 
those whose talents and ambition prompted them to aspire 
1o the first dignities, learned the art of war. From among 
these, they selected all their general officers ; for, though 
they employed mercenary soldiers, they were too jealous 
and suspicious to employ foreign generals. Will a foreigner, 
whose interest is not naturally connected with ours (any 
otherwise than as the cause of liberty is the cause of all 
mankind), will he* act with the same zeal, or expose him- 
self to equal dangers, with the same resolution, for a repub- 
lic of which he is not a member, as he would have done 
for his own native country ? And can the people repose 
an equal confidence in them, even supposing them men of 
integrity and abilities, and that they meet with success equal 
to their abilities ? How much envy and malice are em- 
ployed against them ! And how galling to pride, how mor- 
lifjang to human nature, to see itself excelled. 

31 July. 

1 have nothing new to entertain you with, unless it is an 
account of a new set of mobility, which has lately taken 
the lead in Boston. You must know that there is a great 
scarcity of sugar and coffee, articles which the female part 
of the state is very loth to give up, especially whilst they 
consider the scarcity occasioned by the merchants having 
secreted a large quantity. There had been much rout and 
noise in the town for several weeks. Some stores had been 
opened by a number of people, and the coffee and sugar 
carried into the market, and dealt out by pounds. It was 
rumored that an eminent, wealthy, stingy merchant' (who 

1 Said to have been Thomas Boylstou, who afterwards left lliis country 
and settled in London. 



LETTERS. 85 

is a bachelor) had a hogshead of coffee in his store, which 
he refused to sell to the committee under six shillings per 
pound. A number of females, some say a hundred, some 
say more, assembled with a cart and trucks, marched down 
to the warehouse, and demanded the keys, which he refused 
to deliver. Upon which, one of them seized him by his 
neck, and tossed him into the cart. Upon his finding no 
quarter, he delivered the keys, when they tipped up the 
cart and discharged him; then opened the warehouse, 
hoisted out the coffee themselves, put it into the truck, and 
drove off. 

It was reported, that he had personal chastisement among 
them ; but this, I believe was not true. A large concourse 
of men stood amazed, silent spectators of the whole trans- 
action. 

Adieu. Your good mother is just come ; she desires to 
be remembered to you ; so do my father and sister, who 
have just left me, and so does she, whose greatest happiness 
consists in being tenderly beloved by her absent friend, and 
who subscribes herself ever his 

Portia. 



TO JOHN ADAMS. 



5 August, 1777 

If alarming half a dozen places at the same time is an act 
of generalship, Howe may boast of his late conduct. We 
have never, since the evacuation of Boston, been under 
apprehensions of an invasion, equal to what we suffered 
last week. All Boston was in confusion, packing up and 
carting out of town household furniture, military stores, 
goods, &c. Not less than a thousand teams were employed 
on Friday and Saturday; and, to their shame be it told, 
not a small trunk would they carry under eight dol- 
lars, and many of them, I am told, asked a hundred dollars 
a load ; for carting a hogshead of molasses eight miles, thirty 



/ 

y 



^} 



86 LETTERS. 

dollars. O human nature ! or rather, O inhuman nature ! 
what art thou ? The report of the fleet's being seen off 
Cape Ann Friday night gave me the alarm, and, though 
pretty weak, I set about packing up my things, and on 
Saturday removed a load. 

When I looked around me and beheld the bounties of 
Heaven so liberally bestowed, in fine fields of corn, grass, 
flax, and English grain, and thought it might soon become a 
prey to these merciless ravagers, our habitations laid waste, 
and if our flight preserved our lives, we must return to 
barren fields, empty barns, and desolate habitations, if any 
we find, (perhaps not where to lay our heads,) my heart 
was too full to bear the weight of affliction which I thought 
just ready to overtake us, and my body too weak almost to 
bear the shock, unsupported by my better half. 

But thanks be to Heaven, we are at present relieved from 
our fears respecting ourselves. I now feel anxious for your 
safety, but hope prudence will direct to a proper care and 
attention to yourselves. May this second attempt of Howe's 
prove his utter ruin. May destruction overtake him as a 
whirlwind. 

We have a report of an engagement at the northward, in 
which our troops behaved well, drove the enemy into their 
lines, killed and took three hundred and fifty prisoners. 
The account came in last night. I have not particulars. 
We are under apprehensions that the Hancock is taken. 

Your obliging letters' of the 8th, 10th, and 13th, came to 
hand last week. I hope before this time you are relieved 
from the anxiety you express for your bosom friend. I feel 
my sufferings amply rewarded, in the tenderness you express 
for me. But, in one of your letters, you have drawn a 
picture which drew a flood of tears from my eyes, and 
wrung my heart with anguish inexpressible. I pray Heaven, 
-I may not live to realize it. 

I It is almost thirteen years since we were united, but not 
pore than half that time have we had the happiness of Hv- 

J See Mr. Adams's letters of the* 8th and 13th July, 1777. The first of 
these is the one particularly alluded to. 



LETTERS. 87 

ing together. The unfeeling world may consider it in whatl. 
light they please. I consider it as a sacrifice to my coun- i 
try, and one of my greatest misfortunes, to be sepaiated 
from my children, at a time of life when the joint instruc- \ 
tions and admonition of parents sink deeper than in maturer 
years. 

The hope of the smiles and approbation of my friend 
sweetens all my toils and labors. 

" Ye Powers, whom men and birds obey, 
Great rulers of your creatures, say 
Why mourning comes, by bhss conveyed, 
And even the sweets of love allayed. V 

Where gi'ows enjoyment tall and fair. 
Around it twines entangling care ; 
While fear for what our sons possess 
Enervates every power to bless. 
Yet friendsliip forms the bliss above, 
And, life, what art thou without love ? " 



TO JOHN ADAMS. 

17 September, 1777. ^ 

I HAVE to acknowledge a feast of letters from you since I 
wrote last ; their dates' from August 19th to September 1st. 
It is a very great satisfaction to me to know from day to 
day the movement of Howe and his banditti. We live in 
hourly expectation of important intelligence from both arm- 
ies. Heaven grant us victory and peace ; two blessings, I 
fear, we are very undeserving of. 

Enclosed you will find a letter to Mr. Lovell,' who was 
so obliging as to send me a plan of that part of the country, 
which is like to be the present seat of war. He accompa- 
nied it with a very polite letter, and I esteem myself much 

1 See twelve letters, written between these dates, among those by Mr. 
Adams. 

2 James Lovell ; at this time, and for several years after, a delegate from 
Massachusetts to the General Congress. 



88 LETTEES. 

obliged to him ; but there is no reward this side the grave 
that would be a temptation to me to undergo the agitation 
and distress I was thrown into by receiving a letter in his 
handwriting, franked by him. It seems almost impossible, 
that the human mind could take in, in so small a space of 
time, so many ideas as rushed upon mine in the space of a 
moment. I cannot describe to you what I felt. 

The sickness or death of the dearest of friends, with ten 
thousand horrors, seized my imagination. I took up the 
letter, then laid it down, then gave it out of my hand un- 
able to open it, then collected resolution enough to unseal 
it, but dared not read it; began at the bottom, — read a line, 
— then attempted to begin it, but could not. A paper was 
enclosed, I ventured upon that, and, finding it a plan, re- 
covered enough to read the letter ; but I pray heaven, I may 
never realize such another moment of distress. 

I designed to have written you a long letter, for really I 
owe you one, but have been prevented by our worthy Ply- 
mouth friends, who are here upon a visit, in their way home ; 
and it is now so late at night, just struck twelve, that I will 
defer any thing further till the next post. Good night, friend 
A of my heart, companion of my youth, husband, and lover. 
Angels watch thy repose ! 



TO JOHN ADAMS. 

Boston, 25 October, 1777. ^ 

V The joyful news of the surrender of General Burgoyne and 
all his army, to our victorious troops, prompted me to take 
a ride this afternoon with my daughter to town, to join, to- 
morrow, with my friends in thanksgiving and praise to the 
Supreme Being, who hath so remarkably delivered our ene- 
mies into our hands. And, hearing that an express is to go 
off to-morrow morning, I have retired to write you a few 
lines. I have received no letters from you since you left 




LETTERS. 89 

Philadelphia^ by the post, and but one by any private hand. 
I have written you once before this. Do not fail of writing 
by the return of this express, and direct your letters to the 
care of my uncle, who has been a kind and faithful hand to 
me through the whole season, and a constant attendant upon 
the post-office. 

Burgoyne is expected in by the middle of the week. I 
have read many articles of capitulation, but none which 
ever before contained so generous terms. Many people 
find fault with them, but perhaps do not consider sufficiently 
the circumstances of General Gates, who, by delaying 
exacting more, might have lost all. This must be said of 
him, that he has followed the golden rule, and done as he 
would wish himself, in like circumstances, to be dealt with. 
Must not the vaporing Burgoyne, who, it is said, possesses 
great sensibility, be humbled to the dust ? He may now 
write the Blockade of Saratoga. I have heard it proposed, 
that he should take up his quarters in the Old South, but 
believe he will not be permitted to come to this town. 
Heaven grant us success at the southward. That saying of 
Poor Richard often occurs to my mind, " God helps them 
who help themselves ; " but, if men turn their backs and 
run from an enemy, they cannot surely expect to conquer 
him. 

This day, dearest of friends, completes thirteen years 
since we were solemnly united in wedlock. Three years 
of this time we have been cruelly separated. I have, pa-( 
tiently as I could, endured it, with the belief that you were 
serving your country, and rendering your fellow creatures! 
essential benefits. May future generations rise up and call 
you blessed, and the present behave worthy of the blessings ( 
you are laboring to secure to them, and I shall have less, 
reason to regret the deprivation of my own particular^ 
felicity. 

Adieu, dearest of friends, adieu. 

1 For Yorktown, whither the Congress had adjourned. 



90 LETTERS. 



TO JOHN ADAMS. 

8 March, 1778. 

'Tis a little more than three weeks since the dearest of 
/ friends and tenderest of husbands left * his solitary partner, 
and quitted all the fond endearments of domestic felicity 
jfor the dangers of the sea, exposed, perhaps, to the attack 
m a hostile foe, and, O good Heaven ! can I add, to the 
dark assassin, to the secret murderer, and the bloody emis- 
sary of as cruel a tyrant as God, in his righteous judgments, 
ever suffered to disgrace the throne of Britain, 
j I have travelled with you over the wide Atlantic, and 
could have landed you safe, with humble confidence, at 
your desired haven, and then have set myself down to 
enjoy a negative kind of happiness, in the painful part 
which it has pleased Heaven to allot me ; but the intelli- 
gence with regard to that great philosopher, able statesman, 
and unshaken friend of his country,^ has planted a dagger 
' in my breast, and I feel, with a double edge, the weapon 
that pierced the bosom of a Franklin. 

" For nought avail the virtues of the heart, 

Nor towering genius claims its due reward ; 
From Britain's fury, as from death's keen dart, 
No worth can save us, and no fame can guard." 

The more distinguished the person, the greater the invet- 
eracy of these foes of human nature. The argument of 
my friends to alleviate my anxiety, by persuading me that 
this shocking attempt will put you more upon your guard 
and render your person more secure than if it had never 
taken place, is kind in them, and has some weight; but my 
greatest comfort and consolation arise from the belief of a 
superintending Providence, to whom I can, with confidence, 

1 Mr. Adams, with liis eldest son, sailed for France in the frigate Boston 
in February of this year. 

2 An unfounded rmnor of the assassination of Dr. Franldin in Paris. 



LETTERS. 91 

commit you, since not a sparrow falls to the ground without 
His notice. Were it not for this, I should be miserable and 
overwhelmed by my fears and apprehensions. 

Freedom of sentiment, the life and soul of friendship, is 
in a great measure cut off by the danger of miscarriage, 
and the apprehension of letters falling into the hands of our 
enemies. Should this meet with that fate, may they blush 
for their connection with a nation who have rendered them- 
selves infamous and abhorred, by a long list of crimes, 
which not their high achievements, nor the lustre of former 
deeds, nor the tender appellation of parent, nor the fond 
connexion which once subsisted, can ever blot from our 
remembrance, nor wipe out those indelible stains of their 
cruelty and baseness. They have engraven them with a 
pen of iron on a ro'ck for ever. 

To my dear son remember me in the most affectionate , 
terms. I would have written to him, but my notice is so 
short that I have not time. Enjoin it upon him never to 
disgrace his mother, and to behave worthily of his father. 
Tender as maternal affection is, it was swallowed up in 
what I found a stronger, or so intermixed that I felt it not in 
its full force till after he had left me. I console myself 
with the hopes of his reaping advantages under the carefu\ 
eye of a tender parent, which it was not in my power to 
bestow upon him. 

There has nothing material taken place in the political 
world since you left us. This letter will go by a vessel for 
Bilboa, from whence you may, perhaps, get better opportu- 
nities of conveyance than from any other place. The letter 
you delivered to the pilot came safe to hand. All the little 
folks are anxious for the safety of their papa and brother, to 
whom they desire to be remembered ; to which is added 
the tenderest sentiments of affection, and the fervent prayers 
for your happiness and safety, of your 

Portia. 



92 LETTERS. 



TO JOHN ADAMS. 

18 May, 1778. 

1 HAVE waited with great patience, restraining, as much as 
possible, every anxious idea for three months. But now 
every vessel which arrives sets my expectation upon the 
wing, and I pray my guardian genius to waft me the happy 
tidings of your safety and welfare. Hitherto my wander- 
ing ideas have roved, like the son of Ulysses, from sea to 
sea, and from shore to shore, not knowing where to find 
you ; sometimes I fancied you upon the mighty waters, — 
sometimes at your desired haven, — sometimes upon the 
ungrateful and hostile shore of Britain, — but at all times, 
and in all places, under the protecting care and guardian- 
ship of that B^ing, who not only clothes the lilies of the 
field, and hears the young ravens when they cry, but hath 
said, " Of how much more worth are ye than many spar- 
rows ; " and this confidence, which the world cannot de- 
prive me of; is my food by day, and my rest by night, and 
was all my consolation under the horrid ideas of assassina- 
tion, — the only event of which I had not thought, and in 
some measure prepared my mind. 

When my imagination sets you down upon the Gallic 
shore, a land to which Americans are now bound to transfer 
their affections, and to eradicate all those national prejudices, 
which the proud and haughty nation, whom we once 
revered, craftily instilled into us, whom they once styled 
their children, I anticipate the pleasure you must feel, and, 
though so many leagues distant, share in the joy of finding 
the great interest of our country so generously espoused 
and nobly aided by so powerful a monarch. Your prospects 
must be much brightened ; for, when you left your native 
land, they were rather gloomy. If an unwearied zeal and 
persevering attachment to the cause of truth and justice, 
regardless of the allurements of ambition on the one hand, 
or the threats of calamity on the other, can entitle any one 



LETTERS. 93 

to the reward of peace, liberty, and safety, a large portion 

of those blessings are reserved for my friend in his native 

land. 

" O ! wouldst thou keep thy country's loud applause, 
Loved as her father, as her God adored, 
Be still the bold asserter of her cause, 
Her voice in council ; (in the light her sword ;) 
In peace, in war, pursue thy country's good, 
For her, bare thy bold breast and pour thy generous. blood." 

w- Difficult as the day is, cruel as this war has been, sepa- 
rated as I am, on account of it, from the dearest connexion 
in life,il would not exchange my country for the wealth of \ 
the Indies, or be any other than an American, though I 
might be queen or empress of any nation upon the globe, j 
My soul is unambitious of pomp or power. Beneath my 
humble roof, blessed with the society and tenderest affec- 
tion of my dear partner, I have enjoyed as much felicity • 
and as exquisite happiness, as falls to the share of mortals. / 
And, though I have been called to sacrifice to my country,; 
I can glory in my sacrifice and derive pleasure from my' 
intimate connexion with one, who is esteemed worthy of the I 
important trust devolved upon him. 

Britain, as usual, has added insult to injustice and cruelty, 
by what she calls a conciliatory plan. From my soul I 
despise her meanness ; but she has long ago lost that treas- 
ure, which, a great authority tells us, exalteth a nation, and 
is receiving the reproaches due to her crimes. I have been 
much gratified with the perusal of the Duke of Richmond's 
speech. Were there ten such men to be found, I should 
still have some hopes, that a revolution would take place in 
favor of the virtuous few, " and the laws, the rights, the 
generous plan of power delivered down from age to age by 
our renowned forefathers," be again restored to that un- 
happy island. 

I hope by the close of this month to receive from you a 
large packet. I have written twice before this. Some 
opportunities I may miss by my distance from the capital. 
I have enjoyed a good share of health since you left me. I 
have not mentioned my dear son, though I have often 



94 LETTERS. 

thought of him since I began this letter, because I propose 
writing to him by this opportunity. I omit many domestic 
matters because I will not risk their coming to the public 
eye. 1 shall have a small bill to draw upon you in the 
month of June. I think to send it to Mr. M'^Creery, who, 
by a letter received since you went away, is, I find, settled 
in Bordeaux in the mercantile way, and I dare say will pro- 
cure for me any thing I may have occasion for. I wish 
you would be so good as to write him a line requesting the 
favor of him to procure me such things as I may have occa- 
sion for, and in addition to the bills which may be drawn, 
let him add ten pounds sterling at a time, if I desire it. 
The bills will be at three different times in a year. If they 
should arrive safe thev would render me essential service. 

Our public finances are upon no better footing than they 
were when you left us. Five hundred dollars is now offered 
by this town, per man, for nine months, to recruit the army. 
Twelve pounds a month for farming labor is the price, and 
it is not to be procured under. Our friends are all well and 
desire to be remembered to you. So many tender senti- 
ments rush upon my mind, when about to close this letter 
to you, that I can only ask you to measure them by those 
which you find in your own bosom for 

Your affectionate 

Portia. 



TO JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 



June, 1778. 



MY DEAR SON, 

'T IS almost four months since you left your native land,, 
and embarked upon the mighty waters, in quest of a foreign 
country. Although 1 have not particularly written to you 
since, yet you may be assured you have constantly been 
upon my heart and mind. 



LETTERS. 95 

It is a very difficult task, my dear son, for a tender parent 
to bring her mind to part with a child of your years going 
to a distant land ; nor could I have acquiesced in such a 
separation under any other care than that of the most excel- 
lent parent and guardian who accompanied you. You have 
arrived at years capable of improving under the advantages 
you will be likely to have, if you do but properly attend to 
them. They are talents put into your hands, of which an 
account will be required of you hereafter ; and being pos- 
sessed of one, two, or four, see to it that you double your 
numbers. 

The most amiable and most useful disposition in a young 
mind is diffidence of itself; and this should lead you to seek 
advice and instruction from him, who is your natural guar- 
dian, and will always counsel and direct you in the best 
manner, both for your present and future happiness. You 
are in possession of a natural good understanding, and of 
spirits unbroken by adversity and untamed with care. Im- 
prove your understanding by acquiring useful knowledge 
and virtue, such as will render you an ornament to society, 
an honor to your country, and a blessing to your parents. 
Great learning and superior abilities, should you ever pos- 
sess them, will be of little value and small estimation, unless 
virtue, honor, truth, and integrity are added to them. Ad- 
here to those religious sentiments and principles which were 
early instilled into your mind, and remember that you are 
accountable to your Maker for all your words and actions. 

Let me enjoin it upon you to attend constantly and stead- 
fastly to the precepts and instructions of your father, as you 
value the happiness of your mother and your own welfare. 
His care and attention to you render many things unneces- \ 
sary for me to write, which I might otherwise do ; but the 
inadvertency and heedlessness of youth require line upon I 
line and precept upon precept, and, when enforced by the 
joint effi^rts of both parents, will, I hope, have a due influ- . 
ence upon your conduct ; for, dear as you are to me, I 
would much rather you should have found your grave in ^ 
the ocean you have crossed, or that any untimely death crop 



\ 



96 LETTERS. 

you in your infant years, than see you an immoral, profligate, 
or graceless child. 

You have entered early in life upon the great theatre of 
the world, which is full of temptations and vice of every kind. 
You are not wholly unacquainted with history, in which you 
have read of crimes which your inexperienced mind could 
scarcely believe credible. You have been taught to think of 
them with horror, and to view vice as 

" a monster of so frightful mien, 
That, to be hated, needs but to be seen." 

Yet you must keep a strict guard upon yourself, or the 
odious monster will soon lose its terror by becoming familiar 
to you. The modern history of our own times, furnishes as 
black a list of crimes, as can be paralleled in ancient times, 
even if we go back to Nero, Caligula, or Csesar Borgia. 
Young as you are, the cruel war, into which we have been 
compelled by the haughty tyrant of Britain and the bloody 
emissaries of his vengeance, may stamp upon j'-our mind 
this certain truth, that the welfare and prosperity of all coun- 
tries, communities, and, I may add, individuals, depend upon 
their morals. That nation to which we were once united, 
as it has departed from justice, eluded and subverted the 
wise laws which formerly governed it, and suffered the 
worst of crimes to go unpunished, has lost its valor, wisdom 
and humanity, and, from being the dread and terror of 
Europe, has sunk into derision and infamy. 

But, to quit political subjects, I have been greatly anxious 
for your safety, having never heard of the frigate since she 
sailed, till, about a week ago, a New York paper informed, 
that she was taken and carried into Plymouth. I did not 
fully credit this report, though it gave me much uneasiness. 
I yesterday heard that a French vessel was arrived at Ports- 
mouth, which brought news of the safe arrival of the Boston ; 
but this wants confirmation. I hope it will not be long be- 
fore I shall be assured of your safety. You must write me 
an account of your voyage, of your situation, and of every 
thing entertaining you can recollect. 

Be assured I am most affectionately yours. 



LETTERS. 97 

TO JOHN ADAMS. 

30 June, 177S. 

DEAREST OF FRIENDS, 

Shall I tell my dearest, that tears of joy filled my eyes this 
morning at the sight of his well-known hand ? — the first / 
line which has blessed my sight, since his four months' ab-y 
sence, during which time I have never been able to learn a 
word from him or my dear son, till, about ten days ago, an ( 
English paper, taken in a prize and brought into Salem, 
contained an account, under the Paris news, of your arrivalj 
at the abode of Dr. Franklin ; and, last week, a cartel, from ( 
Halifax, brought Captain Welch, of the Boston, who in- 
formed that he left you well the 11th of March, and that he 
had letters for me, but destroyed them when he was taken ; 
and this is all the information I have ever been able to obtain. 
Our enemies have told us the vessel was taken, and named 
the frigate which took her, and that she was carried into 
Plymouth. I have lived a life of fear and anxiety ever since 
you left me. Not more than a week after your absence, 
the horrid story of Dr. Franklin's assassination was received 
from France, and sent by Mr. Purveyance, of Baltimore, to 
Congress and to Boston. Near two months, before that was 
contradicted. Then we could not hear a word from the 
Boston, and most people gave her up, as taken or lost. 
Thus has my mind been agitated like a troubled sea. 

You will easily conceive, how grateful your favor ' of 
April 25th, and those of our son, were to me and mine ; 
though I regret your short warning, and the little time vou 
had to write, by which means I know not how you fared 
upon your voyage, what reception you have met with (not 
even from the ladies, though you profess yourself an ad- 
mirer of them) and a thousand circumstances which I wish 
to know, and which are always particularly interesting to 
near connexions. I must request you always to be minute, 

^ See this letter among those of Mr. Adanis. 
7 



98 LETTERS. 

and to write me by every conveyance. Some, perhaps, 
which may appear unlikely to reach me, will be the first to 
arrive. I own I was mortified at so short a letter, but I 
quiet my heart with thinking there are many more upon 
their passage to me. I have written several before this, 
and some of them very long. 

Now I know you are safe, I wish myself with you. 
Whenever you entertain such a wish, recollect that I would 
have willingly hazarded all dangers to have been your com- 
panion ; but, as that was not permitted, you must console 
me in your absence, by a recital of all your adventures ; 
though, methinks, I would not have them in all respects too 
similar to those related of your venerable colleague,^ whose 
Mentor-like appearance, age, and philosophy, most certainly 
lead the politico-scientific ladies of France to suppose they 
are embracing the god of wisdom in a human form ; but I, 
who own that I never yet " wished an angel, whom I loved 
a man," shall be full as content if those divine honors are 
omitted. The whole heart of my friend is in the bosom of 
his partner. More than half a score of years have so riveted 
it there, that the fabric w^hich contains it must crumble into 
dust, ere the particles can be separated. I can hear of the 
brilliant accomplishments of any of my sex with pleasure, 
and rejoice in that liberality of sentiment which acknow- 
ledges them. At the same time. I regret the trifling, nar- 
row, contracted education of the females of my own coun- 
try. I have entertained a superior opinion of the accom- 
plishments of the French ladies, ever since I read the letters 
of Dr. Shebbeare, who professes that he had rather take the 
opinion of an accomplished lady, in matters of polite writing, 
than the first wits of Italy ; and should think himself safer, 
with her approbation, than with that of a long list of literati ; 
and he gives this reason for it, that women have, in general, 
more delicate sensations than men ; what touches them, is 
for the most part true in nature, whereas men, warped by 
education, judge amiss from previous prejudice, and, refer- 
ring all things to the mode of the ancients, condemn that by 

* Dr. Franklin. See tlie letter to wliicli this is in answer. 



LETTERS. 99 

comparison, where no true similitude ought to be expected. 

But, in this country, you need not be told how much 
female education is neglected, nor how fashionable it has 
been to ridicule female learning ; though I acknowledge it 
my happiness to be connected with a person of a more gen- 
erous mind and liberal sentiments. I cannot forbear trans- 
cribing a few generous sentiments which I lately met with 
upon this subject. 

*' If women," says the writer, " are to be esteemed our 
enemies, methinks it is an ignoble cowardice, thus to disarm 
them, and not allow them the same weapons we use our- 
selves ; but, if they deserve the title of our friends, 'tis an 
inhuman tyranny to debar them of the privileges of ingenu- 
ous education, which would also render their friendship so 
much the more delightful to themselves and us. Nature is 
seldom observed to be niggardly of her choicest gifts to the 
sex. Their senses are generally as quick as ours ; their 
reason as nervous, their judgment as mature and solid. To 
these natural perfections add but the advantages of acquired 
learning, what polite and charming creatures would they 
prove ; whilst their external beauty does the office of a crys- 
tal to the lamp, not shrouding, but disclosing, their brighter 
intellects. Nor need we fear to lose our empire over them 
by thus improving their native abilities ; since, where there 
is most learning, sense, and knowledge, there is always ob- 
served to be the most modesty and rectitude of manners,'" 



TO JOHN ADAMS.^ \/ C C* * J ^ '' 

The morning after I received your very short letter, I de- 

1 Tliis letter probably failed in reaching its destination. The rough copy 
onljf remains, which ends m an abrupt manner, with the quotation as above. 

2 This is taken from a rough draught ; the original letter is not now among 
Mr. Adams's papei-s. But that it was received by liim and the effect which 
it produced will be seen by reference to liis answer dated 18 December, 
1778. By that answer too, the date, wliich is wholly wantmg in the copy, 
is determined as tlie 25th October of that year. 



100 LETTERS. 

termined to devote the day to writing to my friend ; but I 
had only just breakfasted, when I had a visit from Monsieur 
Riviere, an officer on board the Languedoc, who speaks 
English well, the captain of the Zara, and six or eight other 
officers, from on board another ship. The first gentleman 
dined with me, and spent the day, so that I had no oppor- 
tunity of writing that day. The gentlemen officers have 
made me several visits, and I have dined twice on board, at 
very elegant entertainments. Count d'Estaing has been 
exceedingly polite to me. Soon after he arrived here, I 
received a message from him, requesting that I would meet 
him at Colonel Quincy's, as it was inconvenient leaving his 
ship for any long time. I waited upon him, and was very 
politely received. Upon parting, he requested that the 
family would accompany me on board his ship and dine 
^ with him the next Thursday, with any friends we chose to 
bring ; and his barge should come for us. We went, ac- 
cording to the invitation, and were sumptuously entertained, 
with every delicacy that this country produces, and the addi- 
tion of every foreign article that could render our feast splen- 
did. Music and dancing for the young folks closed the day. 
The temperance of these gentlemen, the peaceable, quiet 
disposition both of officers and men, joined to many other 
virtues which they have exhibited during their continuance 
with us, are sufficient to make Europeans, and Americans 
too, blush at their own degeneracy of manners. Not one 
officer has been seen the least disguised with liquor since 
their arrival. Most that I have seen, appear to be gentle- 
men of family and education. I have been the more desi- 
rous to take notice of them, as I cannot help saying, that 
they have been neglected in the town of Boston. Generals 
Heath and Hancock have done their part, but very few, if 
any, private families have any acquaintance with them. 
Perhaps I feel more anxious to have them distinguished, on 
account of the near and dear connexions I have among them. 
It would gratify me much, if I had it in my power, to en- 
,tertain every officer in the fleet. 

In the very few lines I have received from you, not the 



si 



LETTERS. 101 

least mention is made, that you have ever received a line 
from me. I have not been so parsimonious as my friend, 
— perhaps I am not so prudent;' but I cannot take my pen, j 
with my heart overflowing, and not give utterance to some » 
of the abundance which is in it.^ Could you, after a thou- . 
sand fears and anxieties, long expectation, and painful sus- \ 
pense, be satisfied wilh my telling you, that I was well, \ 
that I wished you were with me, that my daughter sent her | 
duty, that I had ordered some articles for you, which I hoped * 
would arrive, &-c. &c. ? By Heaven, if you could, you! 
have changed hearts with some frozen Laplander, or made 
a voyage to a region that has chilled every drop of your 
blood ; but I will restrain a pen already, I fear, too rash, ,j 
nor shall it tell you how much I have suffered from this 
appearance of — inattention. 

The articles sent by Captain Tucker have arrived safe, 
and will be of great service to me. Our money is very 
little better than blank paper. It takes forty dollars to pur- 
chase a barrel of cider; fifty pounds lawful for a hundred 
of sugar, and fifty dollars for a hundred of flour ; four dol- 
lars per day for a laborer, and find him, which will amount 
to four more. You will see, by bills drawn before the date 
of this, that I had taken the method which I was happy in 
finding you had directed me to. I shall draw for the rest 
as I find my situation requires. No article that can be 
named, foreign or domestic, but what costs more than dou- 
ble in hard money what it once sold for. In one letter I 
have given you an account of our local situation, and of 
every thing I thought you might wish to know. Four or 
five sheets of paper, written to you by the last mail, were 
destroyed when the vessel was taken. Duplicates are my 
aversion, though I believe I should set a value upon them, 
if I were to receive them from a certain friend ; ' a friend 
who never was deficient in testifying his regard and affec- 
tion to his Portia. 

1 By reference to Mr. Adams's reply, it will be seen that the inattention y/ 
which called I'ortli tlioe complaints was only apparent, and caused by tlie 
capture of nearly all the vessels wliich brought letters. 



102 LETTERS. 



TO JOHN ADAMS. 

.Sunday Evening, 27 December, 1778. "^ 

How lonely are my days ! how solitary are my nights ! 
secluded from all society but my two little boys and my 
domestics. By the mountains of snow which surround me, 
1 could almost fancy myself in Greenland. We have had 
four of the coldest days I ever knew, and they were follow- 
ed by the severest snow storm I ever remember. The wind, 
blowing like a hurricane for fifteen or twenty hours, ren- 
dered it impossible for man or beast to live abroad, and has 
blocked up the roads so that they are impassable. A week 
ago I parted with my daughter, at the request of our Ply- 
mouth friends, to spend a month with them ; so that I am 
solitary indeed. 

Can the best of friends recollect, that for fourteen years 
past I have not spent a whole winter alone. Some part 
of the dismal season has heretofore been mitigated and soft- 
ened by the social converse and participation of the friend 
of my youth. 

How insupportable the idea, that three thousand miles 

i and the vast ocean now divide us ! but divide only our per- 

/ sons, for the heart of my friend is in the bosom of his part- 
'^^ ner. More than half a score of years has so riveted it there, 

/ that the fabric which contains it must crumble into dust ere 

i the particles can be separated ; for 

" in one fate, our hearts, our fortunes, 
And oiu" beings blend." 

I cannot describe to you how much T was affected the 
other day with a Scotch song, which was sung to me by a 
young lady in order to divert a melancholy hour ; but it had 
quite a different effect, and the native simplicity of it had 
all the power of a well-wrought tragedy. When I could 
conquer my sensibility I begged the song, and Master Charles 
has learned it, and consoles his mamma by singing it to 



LETTERS. 103 

her. I will enclose it to you. It has beauties in it to me, 
which an indifferent person would not feel perhaps. 

" His very foot has music in 't, 
As he comes up the stairs." 

How oft has my heart danced to the sound of that music .'' 

" And shall I see his face again ? 
And shall I hear him speak ? " 

Gracious Heaven ! hear and answer my daily petition, by 
banishing all my grief. 

I am sometimes quite discouraged from writing. So 
many vessels are taken, that there is little chance of a 
letter's reaching your hands. That I meet with so few 
returns, is a circumstance that lies heavy at my heart. If 
this finds its way to you, it will go by the Alliance. By v 
her I have written before. She has not yet sailed, and I 
love to amuse myself with my pen, and pour out some of 
the tender sentiments of a heart overflowing with affection, 
not for the eye of a cruel enemy, who, no doubt, would 
ridicule every humane and social sentiment, long ago grown 
callous to the finer sensibilities, but for the sympathetic 
heart that beats in unison with 

Portia's. 



TO JOHN ADAMS. 

20 March, 1779. 



MY DEAREST FRIEND, 



Your favor of December 9th, came to hand this evening 
from Philadelphia. By the same post I received a letter 
from Mr. Lovell, transcribing some passages from one of 
the same date to him, and the only one, he says, which he 
has received since your absence, and his pocket-book proves, 
that he has written eighteen different times ; yet possibly 
you may have received as few from him. The watery 



1 04 LETTERS. 

world alone can boast of large packets received ; — a dis- 
couraging thought when I take my pen. Yet I will not be 
discouraged, I will persist in writing, though but one in 
ten should reach you. I have been impatient for an oppor- 
tunity, none having offered since January, when the Alliance 
sailed, which, my presaging mind assures me, will arrive 
safe in France, and I hope will return as safely. 

Accept my thanks for the care you take of me, in so 
kindly providing for me the articles you mention. Should 
they arrive safe, they will be a great assistance to me. 
The safest way, you tell me, of supplying my wants, is by 
drafts ; but 1 cannot get hard money for bills. You had as 
good tell me to procure diamonds for them ; and, when 
bills will fetch but five for one, hard money will exchange 
ten, which I think is very provoking ; and I must give at 
the rate of ten, and sometimes twenty, for one, for every 
article I purchase. I blush whilst I give you a price 
current; — all butcher's meat from a dollar to eight shillings 

j per pound ; corn twenty-five dollars, rye thirty, per bushel ; 
flour fifty pounds per hundred ; potatoes ten dollars per 

^bushel; butter twelve shillings a pound, cheese eight; sugar 
twelve shillings a pound ; molasses twelve dollars per gal- 

jlon; labor six and eight dollars a day ; a common cow, 
from sixty to seventy pounds ; and all English goods in 

I proportion. This is our present situation. It is a risk to 
send me any thing across the water, I know ; yet if one in 

.three arrives, I should be a gainer. I have studied, and do 
study, every method of economy in my power ; otherwise 
a mint of money would not support a family. I could not 

J board our two sons under forty dollars per week apiece at a 
school. I therefore thought it most prudent to request Mr. 
Thaxter to look after them, giving him his board and the 
use of the office, which he readily accepted, and, having 
passed the winter with me, will continue through the sum- 
mer, as I see no probability of the times speedily growing 
better. 

We have had much talk of peace through the mediation 
of Spain, and great news from Spain, and a thousand 



LETTERS. 105 

reports, as various as the persons who tell them ; yet I 
believe slowly, and rely more upon the information of my 
friend, than on all the whole legion of stories which rise 
with the sun, and set as soon. Respecting Georgia,' other 
friends have written you. I shall add nothing of my own, 
but that I believe it will finally be a fortunate event to us. 

Our vessels have been fortunate in making prizes, though 
many were taken in the fall of the year. We have been 
greatly distressed for [want of] grain. I scarcely know 
tlie looks or taste of biscuit or flour for this four months; 
yet thousands have been much worse ofT, having no grain 
of any sort. 

The great commotion raised here J»y Mr. Deane has sunk 
into contempt for his character ; and it would be better for 
him to leave a country which is now supposed to have been 
injured by him. His friends are silent, not knowing how to 
extricate him. It would be happy for him, if he had the 
art himself. He most certainly had art enough, in the 
beginning, to blow up a flame, and to set the whole conti- 
nent in agitation. 

23 April. 

More than a month has passed away since writing the 
above, and no opportunity has yet offered of conveying you 
a line ; next to the pain of not receiving, is that of not bemg 
able to send a token of remembrance and affection, (lou 
must excuse my not copying, as paper is ten dollars per 
quire.) Last week a packet arrived from Brest with 
despatches for Congress, but no private letters. I was dis- 
appointed, but did not complain. You would have written, 
I know, had you supposed she was coming to Boston. By 
her we heard of the safe arrival of the Alliance in France,* 
which gave me much pleasure. May she have as safe a 
return to us again. Last week, arrived here the frigate 
Warren^ after a successful cruise. She had been out about 

1 The descent of the British, under General Prevost and Colonel Camp- 
bell, upon Georgia, 



106 LETTERS. 

six weeks, in company with the Queen of France <, and the 
Ranger, Captain Jones. They fell in with, and captured, a 
fleet, bound from New York to Georgia, consisting of ship 
Jason, twenty guns, and one hundred and fifty men ; ship 
Maria, sixteen guns, eighty-four men, having on board 
eighteen hundred barrels of flour ; privateer schooner Hiber- 
nian, eight guns, and forty-five men ; brigs Patriot, Prince 
Frederick, Bachelor John and schooner Chance; all of 
which are safe arrived, to the universal joy and satisfaction 
of every well-wisher of his country. The officers who 
were captured, acknowledge that this loss will be severely 
felt by the enemy, and it is hoped that it will give General 
Lincoln important advaptages over him in Georgia. 

Respecting domestic affairs, I shall do tolerably, whilst 
my credit is well supported abroad ; and my demands there 
shall be as small as possible, considering the state of things 
here ; but I cannot purchase a bushel of grain under three 
hard dollars, though the scarcity of that article makes it 
dearer than other things. Our friends here all desire to be 
remembered to you. I remind your daughter to write and 
she promises to, but she does not love it. Charley is very 
busy gardening, sends his duty, and hopes to write soon. 
My pen is very bad, but you are so used to the hand you 
can pick it out, and if it goes into the sea it is no matter. I 
should be very glad of some woolens by the Alliance for 
winter gowns ; nothing will be amiss, unless it be men's 
white <silk stockings which I have no occasion for. I sup- 
pose the pair sent among the letters, which came in the 
MijjUin, an accident. 

My pen is really so bad that I cannot add any further, 
than that I am wholly Yours.. 



TO JOHN ADAMS. 

8 June, 1779. 

MY DEAKEST FRIEND, 

Six months have already elapsed since I heard a syllable 



LETTERS. 107 

from you or my dear son, and five, since I have had one 
single opportunity of conveying a line to you. Letters of 
various dates have lain months at the Navy Board, and a 
packet and frigate, both ready to sail at an hour's warning, 
have been months waiting the orders of Congress. They 
no doubt have their reasons, or ought to have, for detaining I 
them. I must patiently wait their motions, however painful | 
it is ; and that it is so, your own feelings will testify. Yet 
I know not but you are less a sufferer than you would be to I 
hear from us, to know our distresses, and yet be unable to \ 
relieve them. The universal cry for bread, to a humane 
heart, is painful beyond description, and the great price de- 
manded and given for it verifies that pathetic passage of 
sacred writ, " All that a man hath will he give for his life." 
Yet He who miraculously fed a multitude with five loaves 
and two fishes, has graciously interposed in our favor, and 
delivered many of the enemy's supplies into our hands, so 
that our distresses have been mitigated. I have been able 
as yet to supply my own family, sparingly, but at a price 
that would astonish you. Corn is sold at four dollars, hard 
money, per bushel, which is equal to eighty at the rate of 
exchange. 

Labor is at eight dollars per day, and in three weeks if 
will be at twelve, it is probable, or it will be more stable thai| 
any thing else. Goods of all kinds are at such a price that 
I hardly dare mention it. Linens are sold at twenty dollars' 
per yard ; the most ordinary sort of calicoes at thirty and 
forty ; broadcloths at forty pounds per yard ; West India 
goods full as high ; molasses at twenty dollars per gallon ;\ 
sugar four dollars per pound ; bohea tea at forty dollars;] 
and our own produce in proportion. Butcher's meat at six 
and eight shillings per pound ; board at fifty and sixty dol-l 
lars per week ; rates high. That, I suppose you will re- ' 
joice at ; so would I, did it remedy the evil. I pay five 
hundred dollars, and a new continental rate has just appeared,! 
my proportion of which will be two hundred more. I have^ 
come to this determination, to sell no more bills, unless I can i 
procure hard money for them, although I shall be obliged \ 



108 .LETTERS. 

to allow a discount. If I sell for paper, I throw away more 
than half, so rapid is the depreciation ; nor do I know that 
it will be received long. I sold a bill to Blodget at five for 
one, which was looked upon as high at that time. The 
week after I received it, two emissions were taken out of 
circulation, and the greater part of what I had, proved to be 
of that sort ; so that those to whom I was indebted, are 
obliged to wait, and before it becomes due, or is exchanged, 
it will be good for — as much as it will fetch, which will be 
nothing, if it goes on as it has done for this three months 
past. I will not tire your patience any longer. I have not 
drawn any further upon you. I mean to wait the return of 
the Alliance^ which with longing eyes I look for. God grant 
it may bring me comfortable tidings from my dear, dear 
friend, whose welfare is so essential to my happiness, that it 
is entwined around my heart and cannot be impaired or 
separated from it without rending it asunder. 
I In contemplation of my situation, I am sometimes thrown 
pnto an agony of distress. Distance, dangers, and O ! I 
cannot name all the fears which sometimes oppress me, and 
harrow up my soul. Yet must the common lot of man one 
day take place, whether we dwell' in our own native land, or 
are far distant from it. That we rest under the shadow of 
the Almighty is the consolation to which I resort, and find 
that comfort which the world cannot give. If He sees best 
to give me back my friend, or to preserve my life to him, it 
will be so. 

Our worthy friend. Dr. Winthrop, is numbered with the 
great congregation, to the inexpressible loss of Harvard 
College. 

" Let no weak drop 
Be shed for him. The virgin, in her bloom 
Cut ofl', the joyous youth, and dariing child. 
These are the tombs that claim the tender tear, 
And elegiac song. But Winthrop calls 
For other notes of gratulation high, 
That now he wanders through tiiose endless worlds 
He here so well descried, and wondering talks, 
And hymns their Author with liis glad compeers." 



LETTERS. 109 

The testimony he gave with his dying breath, in favor of 
revealed religion, does honor to his memory, and will en- 
dear it to every lover of virtue. I know not who will be 
found worthy to succeed him. 

Congress have not yet made any appointment of you to 
any other court. There appears a dilatoriness, an indeci- 
sion, in their proceedings. I have in Mr. Lovell an atten- 
tive friend, who kindly informs me of every thing which 
passes relative to you and your situation, and gives me ex- 
tracts of your letters both to himself and others. I know 
you will be unhappy whenever it is not in your power to 
serve your country, and wish yourself at home, where at 
least you might serve your family. I cannot say that I 
think our affairs go very well here. Our currency seems 
to be the source of all our evils. We cannot fill up our 
Continental army by m^ans of it. No bounty will prevail 
with them. What can be done with it ? It will sink in 
less than a year. The advantage the enemy daily gains 
over us is owing to this. Most truly did you prophesy, 
when you said that they would do all the mischief in their 
power with the forces they had here. 

Many letters are laying in Boston for you, which have 
been written months. My good uncle Smith yesterday let 
me know that a letter of marque, bound for Nantes, would, 
sail in a day or two. I eagerly seize the opportunity, and 
beg you to give my blessing to my son, to whom I have not 
time now to write. I dare not trust myself with the idea, ' 
nor can express how ardently I long to see both parent and 
son. Our whole family has enjoyed great health in your 
absence ; daughter and sons who delight in talking of papa 
and brother. I shall not write for any thing until the 
Alliance returns, and 1 find what success she has had. 

My tenderest regards ever attend you. In all places and 
situations, know me to be ever, 

Ever Yours. 



1 10 LETTERS. 



TO JOHN ADAMS.* 



DEAREST OF FRIENDS, 



My habitation, how disconsolate it looks ! my table, I sit 
,. down to it, but cannot swallow my food ! O, why was I 
sj born with so much sensibility, and why, possessing it, have 
I so often been called to struggle with it ? I wish to see 
you again. Were I sure you would not be gone, I could 
not withstand the temptation of coming to town, though my 
heart would suffer over again the cruel torture of separa- 
tion. 

What a cordial to my dejected spirits were the few lines' 
last night received ! And does your heart forebode that 
we shall again be happy ? My hopes and fears rise alter- 
nately. I cannot resign more than I do, unless life itself 
were called for. My dear sons, I cannot think of them with- 
out a tear. Little do they know the feelings of a mother's 
heart. May they be good and useful as their father ! Then 
will they, in some measure, reward the anxiety of a mother. 
My tenderest love to them. Remember me also to Mr. 
Thaxter, whose civilities and kindness I shall miss. 

God Almighty bless ^and protect my dearest friend, and 
in his own time, restore him to the affectionate bosom of 

Portia. 
V 14 November, 1779. 



TO JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 

12 January, 1780. 



MY DEAR SON, 



I HOPE you have had no occasion, either from enemies or 

1 ]\Ir. Adams had retm-ned from France in August, but was required by 
Congress again to embark at this time, with powers to negotiate a peace 
with Great Britain. He took with him, upon this occasion, his two eldest 
sons. 

2 See Mr. Adams's note of the 13th November, 1779. 



LETTERS. Ill 

the dangers of the sea, to repent your second voyage to 
France. If I had thought your reluctance arose from pro- 
per dehberation, or that you were capable of judging what 
was most for your own benefit, 1 should not have urged you 
to accompany your father and brother when you appeared 
so averse to the voyage. 

You, however, readily submitted to my advice, and, I 
hope, will never have occasion yourself, nor give me rea- 
son, to lament it. Your knowledge of the language must 
give you greater advantages now than you could possibly 
have reaped whilst ignorant of it ; and as you increase in 
years, you will find your understanding opening and daily 
improving. 

Some author, that I have met with, compares a judicious 
traveller to a river, that increases its stream the further it 
flows from its source ; or to certain springs, which, running 
through rich veins of minerals, improve their qualities as 
they pass along. It will be expected of you, my son, that, 
as you are favored with superior advantages under the in- 
structive eye of a tender parent, your improvement should 
bear some proportion to your advantages. Nothing is want- 
ing with you but attention, diligence, and steady applica- 
tion. Nature has not been deficient. 

These are times in which a genius would wish to live. 
It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific 
station, that great characters are formed. Would Cicero 
have shone so distinguished an orator if he had not been 
roused, kindled, and inflamed by the tyranny of Catiline, 
Verres, and Mark Anthony ? The habits of a vigorous 
mind are formed in contending with difficulties. All his- 
tory will convince you of this, and that wisdom and pene- 
tration are the fruit of experience, not the lessons of retire- 
ment and leisure. Great necessities call out great virtues. 
When a mind is raised and animated by scenes that engage 
the heart, then those qualities, which would otherwise lie 
dormant, wake into life and form the character of the hero 
and the statesman. War, tyranny, and desolation are the 
scourges of the Almighty, and ought no doubt to be depre- 



112 LETTERS. 

cated. Yet it is your lot, my son, to be an eyewitness of 
these calamities in your own native land, and, at the same 
time, to owe your existence among a people who have made 
a glorious defence of their invaded liberties, and who, aid- 
ed by a generous and powerful ally, with the blessing of 
Heaven, will transmit this inheritance to ages yet unborn. 

Nor ought it to be one of the least of your incitements to- 
wards exerting every power and faculty of your mind, that 
you have a parent who has taken so large and active a share 
in this contest, and discharged the trust reposed in him with 
so much satisfaction as to be honored with the important 
embassy which at present calls him abroad. 

The strict and inviolable regard you have ever paid to 
truth, gives me pleasing hopes that you will not swerve from 
her dictates, but add justice, fortitude, and every manly vir- 
tue which can adorn a good citizen, do honor to your country, 
and render your parents supremely happy, particularly your 
ever affectionate mother, 

A. A. 



TO JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 
/ 



20 March, 17S0. 



MY DEAR SON, 

Your letter, last evening received from Bilboa, relieved me 
from much anxiety ; for, having a day or two before received 
letters from your papa, Mr. Thaxter," and brother, in which 
packet I found none from you, nor any mention made of 
you, my mind, ever fruitful in conjectures, was instantly 
alarmed. I feared you were sick, unable to write, and your 
papa, unwilling to give me uneasiness, had concealed it from 
me ; and this apprehension was confirmed by every person's 
omitting to say how long they should continue in Bilboa. 

1 Tliis gentleman, who was a student at law in the office of Mr. AdaixLs, 
at the commencement of the troubles, accompanied hhn in the capacity of 
private secretary on this mission. 



, LETTERS. 113 

Your fatlier's letters came to Salem, yours to Newbury- 
port, and soon gave ease to my anxiety, at the same time 
that it excited gratitude and thankfulness to Heaven, for the 
preservation you all experienced in the imminent dangers 
which threatened you. You express in .both your letters a 
degree of thankfulness. I hope it amounts to more than 
words, and that you will never be insensible to the particular 
preservation you have experienced in both your voyages. 
You have seen how inadequate the aid of man would have 
been, if the winds and the seas had not been under the par- 
ticular government of that Being, who " stretched out the 
heavens as a span," who '' holdeth the ocean in the hollow 
of his hand," and " rideth upon the wings of the wind." 

If you have a due sense of your preservation, your next 
consideration will be, for what purpose you are continued 
in life. It is not to rove from clime to clime, to gratify an 
idle curiosity ; but every new mercy you receive is a new- 
debt upon you, a new obligation to a diligent discharge of 
the various relations in which you stand connected ; in the 
first place, to your great Preserver; in the next, to society 
in general ; in particular, to your country, to your parents, 
and to yourself. 

The only sure and permanent foundation of virtue is 
religion. Let this important truih be engraven upon your 
heart. And also, that the foundation of religion is the 
belief of the one only God, and a just sense of his attri- 
butes, as a being infinitely wise, just, and good, to whom you 
owe the highest reverence, gratitude, and adoration ; who 
superintends and governs all nature, even to clothing «ie 
lilies of the field, and hearing the young ravens when they 
cry ; but more particularly regards man, whom he created 
after his own image, and breathed into him an immortal 
spirit, capable of a happiness beyond the grave ; for the 
attainment of which he is bound to the performance of cer- 
tain duties, which all tend to the happiness and welfare of 
society, and are comprised in one short sentence, expressive 
of univei-sal benevolence, " Thou shalt love thv neighbor as 

8 



114 LETTERS. 

thyself." This is elegantly defined by Mr. Pope, in his 
" Essay on Man." 

" Remember, man, the universal cause 
Acts not by partial, but by general laws, 
And makes what happiness we justly call, 
Subsist not in the good of one, but all. 
There 's not a blessing individuals find. 
But some way leans and hearkens to the kind." 

Thus has the Supreme Being made the good will of man 
towards his fellow-creatures an evidence of his regard to 
Him, and for this purpose has constituted him a dependent 
being and made his happiness to consist in society. Man 
early discovered this propensity of his nature, and found 

" Eden was tasteless till an Eve was there." 

Justice, humanity, and benevolence are the duties you 
owe to society in general. To your country the same 
duties are incumbent upon you, with the additional obliga- 
tion of sacrificing ease, pleasure, wealth, and life itself for 
its defence and security. To your parents you owe love, 
reverence, and obedience to all just and equitable com- 
mands. To yourself, — here, indeed, is a wide field to 
expatiate upon. To become what you ought to be, and 
what a fond mother wishes to see you, attend to some pre- 
cepts and instructions from the pen of one, who can have 
no motive but your welfare and happiness, and who wishes 
in this way to supply to you the personal watchfulness and 
care, which a separation from you deprived you of at a 
period of life, when habits are easiest acquired and fixed ; 
and though the advice may not be new, yet suffer it to 
obtain a place in your memory, for occasions may offer, 
and perhaps some concurring circumstances unite, to give 
it weight and force. 

Suffer me to recommend to you one of the most useful 
llessons of life, the knowledge and study of yourself. There 
you run the greatest hazard of being deceived. Self-love 
and partiality cast a mist before the eyes, and there is no 
knowledge so hard to be acquired, nor of more benefit when 



LETTERS. 115 

once thoroughly understood. Ungoverned passions liave. 
aptly been compared to the boisterous ocean, which is known' 
to produce the most terrible effects. " Passions are the 
elements of life," but elements which are subject to the 
control of reason. Whoever will candidly examine them-' 
selves, will find some degree of passion, peevishness, or 
obstinacy in their natural tempers. You will seldom find 
these disagreeable ingredients all united in one ; but the 
uncontrolled indulgence of either is sufficient to render the 
possessor unhappy in himself, and disagreeable to all who 
are so unhappy as to be witnesses of it, or suffer from its 
effects. \ 

You, my dear son, are formed with a constitution feeling- 
ly alive ; your passions are strong and impetuous ; and,, 
though I have sometimes seen them hurry you into excesses, 
yet with pleasure I have observed a frankness and gene-/ 
rosity accompany your efforts to govern and subdue them. 
Few persons are so subject to passion, but that they can | 
command themselves, when they have a motive sufficiently 
strong ; and those who are most apt to transgress will re- 
strain themselves through respect and reverence to supe- 
riors, and even, where they wish to recommend themselves, 
to their equals. The due government of the passions, has 
been considered in all ages as a most valuable acquisition. 
Hence an inspired writer observes, " He that is slow to anger, 
is better than the mighty ; and he that ruleth his spirit, than 
he that taketh a city." This passion, cooperating with 
power, and unrestrained by reason, has produced the sub- 
version of cities, the desolation of countries, the massacre 
of nations, and filled the world with injustice and oppres- 
sion. Behold your own country, your native land, suffer- 
ing from the effects of lawless power and malignant passions, 
and learn betimes, from your own observation and expe- 
rience, to govern and control yourself. Having once ob- 
tained this self-government, you will find a foundation laid 
for happiness to yourself and usefulness to mankind. " Vir- 
tue alone is happiness below ;" and consists in cultivating 
and improving every good inclination, and in checking and 



116 LETTERS. 

subduing every propensity to evil. I have been particu- 
lar upon the passion of anger, as it is generally the most 
predominant passion at your age, the soonest excited, and 
the least pains are taken to subdue it ; 

— " what composes man, can man destroy." 

I do not mean, however, to have you insensible to real 
injuries. He who will not turn when he is trodden upon is 
deficient in point of spirit ; yet, if you can preserve good 
' breeding and decency of manners, you will have an ad- 
vantage over the aggressor, and will maintain a dignity of 
character, which will always insure you respect, even from 
the offender. 

I will not overburden your mind at this time. I mean to 
pursue the subject of self-knowledge in some future letter, 
and give you my sentiments upon your future conduct in 
life, when 1 feel disposed to resume my pen. 

In the mean time, be assured, no one is more sincerely 
interested in your happiness, than your ever affectionate 
mother, 

A. A. 

Do not expose my letters. I would copy, but hate it. 



TO JOHN ADAMS. 

Sunday Evening, 16 July, 1780. V 

MY- DEAREST FRIEND, 

I HAD just returned to my chamber, and taken up my pen 
to congratulate you upon the arrival of the fleet of our 
allies at Newport, when I was called down to receive the 
most agreeable of presents, — letters from my dearest 
friend. One bearing date March 28th, by Mr. Izard, and 
one of May 3d, taken out of the post-office ; but to what 
port they arrived first I know not. They could not be 



LETTERS. 117 

those by the fleet, as in these you make mention of letters, 
which I have not yet received, nor by the Alliance^ since 
Mr. Williams sailed twenty-five days after the fleet, and 
she was then in France. A pity, I think, that she should 
stay there when here we are almost destitute. Our navy 
has been unfortunate indeed. I am sorry to find, that only 
a few lines have reached you from me. I have written by 
way of Spain, Holland, and Sweden, but not one single 
direct conveyance have I had to France since you left me. 
I determine to open a communication by way of Gardoqui, 
and wish you would make use of the same conveyance. 

What shall I say of our political aflTairs ? Shall I exclaim 
at measures now impossible to remedy } No. I will hope 
all from the generous aid of our allies, in concert with our 
o\vii exertions. I am not suddenly elated or depressed. I 
know America capable of any thing she undertakes with 
spirit and vigor. " Brave in distress, serene in conquest, 
drowsv when at rest," is her true characteristic. Yet I 
deprecate a failure in our present effort. The efforts are 
great, and we give, this campaign, more than half our 
property to defend the other. He who tarries from the 
field cannot possibly earn sufficient at home to reward him 
who takes it. Yet, should Heaven bless our endeavours, 
and crown this year with the blessings of peace, no exer- 
tion will be thought too great, no price of property too dear. 
My whole soul is absorbed in the idea. The honor of my 
dearest friend, the welfare and happiness of this wide-ex- 
tended country, ages yet unborn, depend for their happiness 
and security upon the able and skilful, the honest and up- 
right, discharge of the important trust committed to him. 
It would not become me to write the full flow of my heart 
upon this occasion. My constant petition for him is, that 
he may so discharge the trust reposed in him as to merit 
the approving eye of Heaven, and peace, liberty, and safety 
crown his latest years in his own native land. 

The Marchioness,' at the Abbe Raynal's, is not the only 

J Doubtless llie Marcliioness Lafayette. 



7 



118 LETTERS. 

lady who joins an approving voice to that of her country, 
though at the expense of her present domestic happiness. 
It is easier to admire virtue than to practise it ; especially 
the great virtue of self-denial. I find but few sympathizing 
souls. Why should I look for them ? since few have any 
souls, but of the sensitive kind. That nearest allied to my 
own they have taken from me, and tell me honor and fame 
are a compensation. 

" Fame, wealth, or honor, — what are ye to love ? " 

But hushed be my pen. Let me cast my eye upon the 
letters before me. What is the example ? I follow it in 
silence. I have repeated to you in former letters that I had 
received all your letters from Spain, unless you wrote by 
Captain Trask, who brought me some articles, but no letters. 
My father desires to be remembered to you, but will, I fear, 
never again see you. He declines daily ; has a slow fever 
hanging about him, which wastes his flesh and spirits. 
These are tender ties, and how far soever advanced in life, 
the affectionate child feels loth to part with the guide of 
youth, the kind adviser of riper years. Yet the pillars 
must moulder with time, and the fabric fall to the dust. 

Present my compliments to Mr. Dana.' Tell him I have 
called upon his lady, and we enjoyed an afternoon of sweet 
communion. I find she would not be averse to taking a 
voyage, should he be continued abroad. She groans most 
bitterly, and is irreconcilable to his absence, I am a mere 
philosopher to her. I am inured, but not hardened, to the 
painful portion. Shall I live to see it otherwise .'' 

Your letters are always valuable to me, but more partic- 
ularly so when they close with an affectionate assurance of 
regard, which, though I do not doubt, is never repeated 
without exciting the tenderest sentiments ; and never omit- 
ted without pain to the affectionate bosom of your 

Portia. 

1 Francis Dana was appointed by Ck)ng-ress secretary to Mr. Adams upon 
tins mission, and accompanied hiin in his voyaire. He was afterwards sent 
to Russia as Minister ; upon which occasion Mr. Adams's eldest son went 
with him to St. Petersburgh. 



LETTERS. 119 



TO JOHN ADAMS. 

15 October, 1780. 

MY DEAREST FRIEND. 

I CLOSED a long letter to you only two days ago, but as no 
opportunity is omitted by me, I embrace this, as Colonel 
Fleury was kind enough to write me on purpose, from New- 
port, to inform me of it, and to promise a careful attention 
to it. Yet I feel doubtful of its safety. The enemy seems 
to be collecting a prodigious force into these seas, and is 
bent upon the destruction of our allies. We are not a little 
anxious for them, and cannot but wonder, that they are not 
yet reinforced. Graves's fleet, Arbuthnot's and Rodney's, 
all here ; with such a superiority, can it be matter of sur- 
prise, if M, de Ternay should fall a sacrifice ? My own 
mind, I own, is full of apprehension ; yet I trust we shall 
not be delivered over to the vengeance of a nation more 
wicked and perverse than our own. We daily experience 
the correcting and the defending arm. The enclosed papers 
will give you the particulars of an infernal plot,' and the 
providential discovery of it. For, however the belief of a 
particular Providence may be exploded by the modern wits, 
and the infidelity of too many of the rising generation de- 
ride the idea, yet the virtuous mind will look up and ac- 
knowledge the great First Cause, without whose notice not 
even a sparrow falls to the ground. 

I am anxious to hear from you. Your last letter, which 
I have received, was dated June the 17th. I have written 
you repeatedly, that my trunk was not put on board the 
Alliance ; that poor vessel was the sport of more than winds 
and waves. The conduct with regard to her is considered as 
very extraordinary. She came to Boston, as you have no 
doubt heard. Landais is suspended. The man must be 

^ The Ireaclierv of Benedict Ai-nokl. 



120 LETTERS. 

new made before he can be entitled to command. ^ I hope 
Captain Sampson arrived safe. He carried the resolve of 
Congress, which you wanted. 

You tell me to send j'ou prices current. I will aim at it. 

Corn, is now thirty pounds, rye twenty-seven, per bushel. 

Flour from a hundred and forty to a hundred and thirty 

per hundred. Beef, eight dollars per pound; mutton, nine; 

lamb, six, seven, and eight. Butter twelve dollars per 

pound ; cheese, ten. Sheep's wool thirty dollars per pound ; 

flax, twenty. West India articles; — sugar, from a hundred 

and seventy to two hundred pounds per hundred ; molasses, 

forty-eight dollars per gallon ; tea, ninety ; coffee, twelve ; 

cotton wool, thirty per pound. Exchange from seventy to 

seventy-five for hard money. Bills at fifty. Money scarce ; 

/plenty of goods ; enormous taxes. Our State affairs are 

/thus. Hancock will be Governor, by a very great majori- 

/ ty ; the Senate will have to choose the Lieutenant-Gover- 

/ nor. Our constitution is read with great admiration in New 

I York, and pronounced by the Royal Governor the best re- 

/ publican form he ever saw, but with sincere hopes that it 

might not be accepted. How will it be administered .? is 

\ now the important question. 

The report of the day is, that three thousand troops are 
arrived at New York from England. 

Adieu ! Most affectionately yours. 



TO JOHN ADAMS. 

28 January, 1781. 

MY DEAEEST FRIEND, 

Last evening General Lincoln called here, introducing to 
me a gentleman, by the name of Colonel Laurens, the son, 

1 See the Works of Benjamin Franklin, Sparks's Edition. Vol. viii. p. 
485, note. 



LETTERS. 121 

as I suppose, of your much esteemed friend, the late Presi- 
dent of Congress ; who informed me, that he expected to 
sail for France in a few days, and would take despatches 
from me. Although I closed letters to you, by way of 
Holland, a few days ago, I would not omit so good an op- 
portunity as the present. 'T is a long time since the date 
of your last letters, the 25th of September. I wait with 
much anxiety, listening to the sound of every gun, but none 
announce the arrival of the Fame, from Holland, which we 
greatly fear is taken or lost, or the Mars, from France. 
Colonel Laurens is enabled, I suppose, to give you every 
kind of intelligence respecting the army, which you may 
wish to learn. Mr. Cranch has written you upon the same 
subject by way of Holland. Your friends here complain 
that you do not write to them. I suppose Davis threw over 
half a hundred letters. If you are unfortunate in that way, 
it is not to be helped. 

I have the pleasure to inform you, that a repeal of the 
obnoxious tender act has passed the House and Senate. 
The Governor, as has been heretofore predicted, when any 
thing not quite popular is in agitation, has the gout, and is 
confined to his bed. A false weight and a false balance 
are an abomination, and in that light this tender act must 
be view'cd by every impartial person. Who, but an idiot, 
would believe that forty were equal to seventy-five ? But 
the repeal gives us reason to hope, that justice and righte- 
ousness will ae;ain exalt our nation ; that public faith will 
be restored ; that individuals will lend to the public ; and 
that the heavy taxes, which now distress all orders, will be 
lessened. 

A late committee, who have been sitting upon w-ays and 
means for raising money, tell us, that a tax for two years 
more, equal to what we have paid in the last, would clear 
this State of debt. You may judge of the weight of them ; 
yet our State taxes are but as a grain of mustard seed, 
when compared with our town taxes. Clinton, 1 hear, has 
sent out a proclamation upon Germain's plan, inviting the 
people to make a separate peace, which will only be a new 



122 LETTERS. 

proof of the ignorance artd folly of our enemies, without 
making a single proselyte. Even the revolted Pennsylva- 
nia troops gave up to justice the spies, whom Clinton sent 
to them, offering them clothing and pay, letting him know, 
that it was justice from their State, not favors from their 
enemies, which they wanted. 

It is reported, that Arnold, with a body of troops, is gone 
to Virginia, where it is hoped he and his Myrmidons will 
meet their fate. Had Clinton been a generous enemy, or 
known human nature, he would, like Aurelian, upon a like 
occasion, have given up the traitor to the hands of justice ; 
knowing that it was in vain to expect fidelity in a man who 
had betrayed his own country, which, from his defection, 
may learn to place a higher value upon integrity and virtue 
than upon a savage ferocity, so often mistaken for courage. 
He who, as an individual, is cruel, unjust, and immoral, will 
not be likely to possess the virtues necessary in a general 
or statesman. Yet, in our infant country, infidelity and 
debauchery are so fashionably prevalent, that less attention 
is paid to the characters of those who fill important offices, 
than a love of virtue and zeal for public liberty can warrant ; 
which, we are told by wise legislators of old, are the surest 
preservatives of public happiness. 

You observe in a late letter, that your absence from your 
native State will deprive you of an opportunity of being a 
man of importance in it. I hope you are doing your country 
more extensive service abroad, than you could have done, 
had you been confined to one State only; and, whilst you 
continue in the same estimation among your fellow-citizens 
in which you are now held, you will not fail of being of 
importance to them at home or abroad. 

Heaven preserve the life and health of my dear absent 
friend, and, in its own time, return him to his countiy and 
to the arms of his ever affectionate 

Portia. 

P. S. Love to my dear boys. I have sent you a present 
by Colonel Laurens. 



LETTERS. 123 




TO JOHN ADABIS. 

25 May, 1781. 

In this beautiful month, when Nature wears her gayest garb, 
and animal and vegetable life is diffused on every side ; when 
the cheerful hand of industry is laying a foundation for a 
plentiful harvest, who can forbear to rejoice in the season, 
or refrain from looking " through nature up to nature's 
God;" 

" To feel the present Deity, and taste 
The joy of God, to see a happy world." 

While my heart expands, it, sighing, seeks its associate, and 
joins its first parent in that beautiful description of Milton. 

" Sweet is the breath of Morn, her rising sweet, 
"With charm of earliest birds ; pleasant the sun, 
"When tirst on this delightful land he spreads 
His orient beams on herb, tree, fruit, and tlower. 
Glistering with dew ; fragrant the fertile earth 
After soft showers ; and sweet the coming on 
Of grateful Evening mild ; then silent Night 
With this her solemn bird, and this fair moon. 
And these the gems of Heaven, her starry train : 
But neither breath of morn when she ascends 
AVith charm of earliest bii'ds ; nor rising sun 
On this delightful land ; nor herb, fruit, flower, 
Glistering with dew ; nor fragrance after showers ; 
Nor grateful Evening mild ; nor silent Night 
"With this her solemn bnd, nor walk by moon, 
Or glittering starlight, vdthotit thee is swest.'''' 

This passage has double charms for me, painted by the 
hand of truth ; and for the same reason, that a dear friend 
of mine, after having viewed a profusion of beautiful pic- 
tures, pronounced that which represented the parting of 
Hector and Andomache to be worth them all. The journal 
in which this is mentioned does not add any reason why it 
was so ; but Portia felt its full force, and paid a grateful tear 
to the acknowledgment. 

This day, my dear friend, completes eight months since 



124 LETTERS. 

the date of your last letter, and five since it was received. 
You may judge of my anxiety. I doubt not but you have 
written many times since, but Mars, Bellona, and Old Nep- 
tune are in league against me. I think you must still be in 
Holland, from whence no vessels have arrived since the 
"declaration of war. There are some late arrivals from 
France, but no private letters. I have had the pleasure of 
hearing of the safety of several vessels which went from 
hence, by which I wrote to you, so that I have reason to 
think I have communicated pleasure, though I have not 
been a partaker in the same way. 

This will be delivered to you by Mr. Storer, who is going 
first to Denmark, and who designs to tarry abroad some 
time. If you had been a resident in your own country, it 
would have been needless for me to have told you that Mr. 
Storer is a gentleman of fair character, I need not add, of 
amiable manners, as these are so discoverable in him upon 
the slightest acquaintance. 

We are anxiously waiting for intelligence from abroad. 
We shall have in the field a more respectable army, than 
has appeared there since the commencement of the war ; 
and all raised for three years or during the war, most of 
them men who have served before. The towns have ex- 
erted themselves upon this occasion with a spirit becoming 
patriots. We wish for a naval force, superior to what we 
have yet had, to act in cbncert with our army. We have 
been flattered from day to day, yet none has arrived. The 
enemy exults in the delay, and is improving the time to 
ravage Carolina and Virginia. 

We hardly know what to expect from the United Pro- 
vinces, because we are not fully informed of their disposi- 
tion. Britain has struck a blow, by the capture of Eustatia, 
sufficient to arouse and unite them against her, if there still 
exists that spirit of liberty, which shone so conspicuous in 
their ancestors, and which, under much greater difficulties, 
led their hardy forefathers to reject the tyranny of Philip. 
I wish your powers may extend to an alliance with them, 
and that you may be as successful against the artifices of 



LETTERS. 125 

Britain, as a former ambassador * was against those of an- 
another nation, when he negotiated a triple alliance in the 
course of five days, with an address which has ever done 
honor to his memory. If I was not so nearly connected, I 
should add, that there is no small similarity in the character 
of my friend and the gentleman, whose memoirs I have read 
with great pleasure. 

Our State affairs I will write you, if the vessel does not 
sail till after election. Our friend, Mr. Cranch, goes from 
here representative, by a unanimous vote. Dr. Tufts, of 
Weymouth, is chosen senator. Our governor and lieutenant 
governor, as at the beginning. Our poor old currency is 
breathing its last gasp. It received a most fatal wound from 
a collection of near the whole body's entering here from the 
southward ; having been informed, that it was treated here 
with more respect, and that it could purchase a solid and 
durable dress here for seventy-five paper dollars, but half the 
expense it must be at there, it travelled here with its whole 
train ; and, being much debauched in its manners, communi- 
cated the contagion all of a sudden, and is universally reject- 
ed. It has given us a great shock. Mr. Storer can give 
you more information. 

I have by two or three opportunities acquainted you that 
I received the calicoes you ordered for me, by Sampson, 
though many of them were much injured by being wet. I 
have not got my things yet from Philadelphia. I have ac- 
quainted you with my misfortune there, owing to the bad 
package. I have no invoice or letter from Mr. Moylan, 
though I have reason to think many things have been stolen, 
as all Dr. Tufts's are missing, and several of mine, according 
to Mr. LovelPs invoice, who was obliged to unpack what 
remained and dry them by a fire, most of them much dam- 
aged. 

To my dear sons I shall write by this opportunity. I have 
not received a line from them for this twelvemonth. I hope 
they continue to behave worthy the esteem of every body, 
which will never fail to communicate the greatest pleasure 

^ Sir William Temple. 



126 LETTERS. 

to their affectionate parents. I enclosed an invoice of a few 
articles by Captain Brown. I will repeat it here. Every 
thing in the goods way will be an acceptable remittance to 
Your ever affectionate 

Portia. 



TO JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 

Braintree, 26 May 1781. 

MY DEAR JOHN, 

1 HOPE this letter will be more fortunate than yours have 
been of late. I know you must have written many times 
since I had the pleasure of receiving a line from you, for 
this month completes a year since the date of your last let- 
ter. Not a line from you or my dear Charles since you 
arrived in Holland, where 1 suppose you still are. I never 
was more anxious to hear, yet not a single vessel arrives 
from that port though several are looked for. 

I would recommend it -to you to become acquainted with 
the history of that country, as in many respects it is similar 
to the Revolution of your own. Tyranny and oppression 
were the original causes of the revolt of both countries. It 
is from a wide and extensive view of mankind that a just and 
true estimate can be formed of the powers of human nature. 
She appears ennobled or deformed, as religion, government, 
laws, and custom guide or direct her. Fierce, rude and 
savage in the uncultivated desert ; gloomy, bigoted and su- 
perstitious where truth is veiled in obscurity and mystery ; 
ductile, pliant, elegant, and refined, you have seen her in 
that dress, as well as in the active, bold, hardy, and intrepid 
garb of your own country. 

Inquire of the historic page, and let your own observa- 
tions second the inquiry, whence arises the difference ? and 
when compared, learn to cultivate those dispositions, and to 
practise those virtues, which tend most to the benefit and 
happiness of mankind. 



LETTERS. 127 

The great Author of our religion frequently inculcated 
universal benevolence and taught us both by precept and 
example when he promulgated peace and good will to man, 
a doctrine very different from that which actuates the hostile 
invaders and the cruel ravagers of mighty kingdoms and 
nations. 

I hope you will be very particular, when you write, and 
let me know how you have passed your time, in the course 
of the year past. 

Your favorable account of your brother gave me great 
pleasure, not only as it convinced me that he continues to 
cultivate that agreeable disposition of mind and heart which 
so greatly endeared him to his friends here, but as it was a 
proof of the brotherly love and affection of a son not less 
dear to his parents. 

I shall write to your brother, so shall only add the sincere 
wishes for your improvement and happiness of 

Your ever affectionate Mother. 



TO JOHN ADAMS. 

9 December, 1781, 



y 



MY DEAREST FRIEND, 

I HEAR the Alliance is again going to France, with the Mar- 
quis de la Fayette and the Count de Noailles. I will not 
envy the Marquis the pleasure of annually visiting his family, 
considering the risk he runs in doing it ; besides, he deserves 
the good wishes of every American, and a large portion of 
the honors and applause of his own country. He returns 
with the additional merit of laurels won at Yorktown by the 
capture of a whole British army. America may boast, that 
she has accomplished what no power before her ever did, 
contending with Britain, — captured two of their celebrated 
generals, and each with an army of thousands of veteran 
troops to support them. This event, whilst it must fill Brit- 
ain with despondency, will draw the Union already framed 



• 



A 



128 LETTERS. 

still closer and give us additional allies ; and, if properly 
improved, will render a negotiation easier and more advan- 
tageous to America. 

But I cannot reflect much upon public affairs, until 1 have 
unburdened the load of my own heart. Where shall I begin 
my list of grievances ? Not by accusations, but lamenta- 
tions. My first is, that I do not hear from you ; a few lines 
only, dated in April and May, have come to hand for fifteen 
months. You do not mention receiving any from me except 
by Captain Casneau, though I wrote by Colonel Laurens, 
by Captain Brown, by Mr. Storer, Dexter, and many others ; 
to Bilboa by Trask, and several times by way of France. 
You will refer me to Gillon, I suppose. Gillon has acted a 
base part, of which, no doubt, you are long ere now ap- 
prized, i You had great reason to suppose, that he would 
reach America as soon or sooner than the merchant vessels, 
and placed much confidence in him by the treasure you 
permitted to go on board of him. Ah ! how great has my 
anxiety been. What have I not suffered since I heard my 
dear Charles was on board, and no intelligence to be pro- 
cured of the vessel for four months after he sailed. Most 
people concluded, that she was foundered at sea, as she sailed 
before a violent storm. Only three weeks ago did I hear the 
contrary. My uncle despatched a messenger, the moment 
a vessel from Bilboa arrived with the happy tidings, that 
she was safe at Corunna ; that the passengers had all left 
the ship in consequence of Gillon's conduct, and were ar- 
rived at Bilboa. The vessel sailed the day that the passen- 
gers arrived at Bilboa, so that no letters came by Captain 
Lovett ; but a Dr. Sands reports, that he saw a child, who 
they told him was yours, and that he was well. This was 
a cordial to my dejected spirits. I know not what to wish 
for. Should he attempt to come at this season upon the 
coast, it has more horrors than I have fortitude. I am still 
distressed ; I must resign him to the kind, protecting hand 



1 For some account of Commodore Gillon, see the worlcs of Benjamin 
Franklin, Sparks's Edition, Vol. ix. p. 54, note. 



LETTERS. 129 

of that Being, who hath hhherto preserved hhn, and submit 
to whatever dispensation is allotted me. 

What is the matter with Mr. Thaxter ? Has he forgotten 
all his American friends, that, out of four vessels which 
have arrived, not a line is to be found on board of one of 
them from him ? I could quarrel with the climate, but 
surely, if it is subject to the ague, there is a fever fit as 
well as a cold one. Mr. Guild tells me, he was charged 
with letters, but left them, whh his other things, on board 
the frigate. She gave him the slip and he stepped on board 
of Captain Brown's ship, and happily arrived safe. From 
him I have learned many things respecting my dear con- 
nexions ; but still I long for that free communication, which 
I see but little prospect of obtaining. Let me again entreat 
you to write by way of Gardoqui. Bilboa is as safe a con-> , 
veyance as 1 know of. Ah, my dear John ! where are\ V 
you } In so remote a part of the globe, that I fear I shall 
not hear a syllable from you. Pray write me all the intelli-l 
gcnce you get from him ; send me his letters to j'ou. DoV 
you know I have not had a line from him for a year and a 
half.? Alas ! my dear, I am much afflicted with a disorder \ 
called the heartache^ nor can any remedy be found in 
America. It must be collected from Holland, Petersburg,, 
and Bilboa. 1 ^ 

And now, having recited my griefs and complaints, the 
next in place are those of my neighbours. I have been 
applied to by the parents of several Braintree youth to 
write to you in their behalf, requesting your aid and assist- 
ance, if it is in your power to afford it. Captain Cathcart, 
in the privateer Essei\ from Salem, went out on a cruise 
last April in the Channel of England, and was, on the 10th 
of June, so unfortunate as to be taken and carried into Ire- 
land. The officers were confined there, but the sailors 
were sent prisoners to Plymouth jail, twelve of whom are 

J Her liasbantl was in Holland, her eldest son, John Quincv, at St. Petei-s- / 
biirg with Mr. Dana, and Jier .second son. Charles, was tlien on his way ^ 
home, and at Bilboa, in consequence of the dilticulties with Commodore 
Gillon, in whose ship he had sailed. 

9 



130 LETTERS. 

from this town, a list of whom T enclose. The friends of 
these people have received intelligence by way of an offi- 
cer, who belonged to the Protector^ and who escaped from 
the jail, that in August last they were all ahve, several of 
them very destitute of clothing, having taken but a few 
with them and those for the summer, particularly Ned Savil 
and Job Field. Their request is, that, if you can, you 
would render them some assistance ; if not by procuring 
an exchange, that you would get them supplied with neces- 
sary clothing. I have told them, that you would do all in 
your power for them, but what that would be, I could not 
say. Their friends here are all well, many of them greatly 
distressed for their children, and in a particular manner the 
mother of Josiah Bass. I wish you to be very particular in 
letting me know, by various opportunities and ways after 
the receipt of this, whether you have been able to do any 
thing for them, that I may relieve the minds of these dis- 
tressed parents. The Captain got home about three months 
ago by escaping to France, but could give no account of 
his men after they were taken. 

Two years, my dearest friend, have passed away since 
you left your native land. Will you not return ere the 
close of another year ? I will purchase you a retreat in 
the woods of Vermont, and retire with you from the vexa- 
tions, toils, and hazards of public life. Do you not some- 
times sigh for such a seclusion? Public peace and domestic 
happiness ; 

" an elegant sufficiency, content, 
Retirement, rural quiet ; friendrship, boolcs, 
Ea.se and alternate labor ; useful lil'e, 
Progressive'xirtue, and approving Heaven." 

May the time, the happy time soon arrive, when we may 
realize these blessings, so elegantly described by Thomson ; 
for, though many of our countrymen talk in a different 
style with regard to their intentions, and express their 
wishes to see you in a conspicuous point of view in your 
own State, I feel no ambition for a share of it. I know the 
voice of fame to be a mere weather-cock, unstable as water 



LETTERS. 131 

and fleeting as a shadow. Yet I have pride; I know I have 
a large portion of it. 

I very fortunately received, by the Apollo^ by the Juno^ 
and by the Minerva^ the things you sent me, all in good or- 
der. They will enable me to do, I hope, without drawing 
upon you, provided I can part with them ; but money is so 
scarce, and taxes so high that few purchasers are found. 
Goods will not double, yet they are better than drawing bills, 
as these cannot be sold but with a large discount. 1 could 
not get more than ninety for a hundred dollars, should I 
attempt it. 

I shall enclose an invoice to the house of Ino;raham and 
Bromfield, and one to De Neufville. There is nothing from 
Bilboa that can be imported to advantage. Handkerchiefs 
are sold here at seven dollars and a half per dozen. There 
are some articles which would be advantageous from Holland, 
but goods there run high, and the retailing vendues, which 
are tolerated here, ruin the shopkeepers. The articles put 
up by the American house were better in quality for the 
price than those by the house of De Neufville. Small arti- 
cles have the best profit ; gauze, ribbons, feathers, and flow- 
ers, to make the ladies gay, have the best advance. There 
are some articles, which come from India, I should suppose 
would be lower-priced than many others, — Bengals, nan- 
keens, Persian silk, and bandanna handkerchiefs ; but the 
house of Bromfield know best what articles will suit here. 
I have been fortunate and unfortunate. The things which 
came with Jones remain at Philadelphia yet. 

Our friends here are all well. Your mother is in rather 
better health, and my father is yet sprightly. Believe me, 
with more aflection than words can express, ever, ever, 
yours. 

Portia. 



132 LETTERS. 



TO JOHN ADABIS. 



j 

V 25 October, 1782. 



MY DEAREST FRIEND, 

The family are all retired to rest ; the busy scenes of the 
day are over ; a day which I wished to have devoted in a 
particular manner to my dearest friend ; but company falling 
in prevented it, nor could I claim a moment until this silent 
watch of the night. 

Look, (is there a dearer name than /ne^ic? ? Think of it 
tfor me,) look to the date of this letter, and tell me, what are 
the thoughts which arise in your mind ? Do you not recol- 
lect, that eighteen years have run their circuit since we 
pledged our mutual faith to each other, and the hymeneal 
' torch was lighted at the altar of Love ? Yet, yet it burns 
with unabating fervor. Old Ocean has not quenched it, nor 
old Time smothered it in this bosom. It cheers me in the 
lonely hour ; it comforts me even in the gloom which some- 
times possesses my mind. 

It is, my friend, from the remembrance of the joys I have 

1 lost, that the arrow of affliction is pointed. I recollect the 
untitled man, to whom I gave my heart, and, in the agony 

\ I of recollection, when time and distance present themselves 

%/ together, wish he had never been any other. Who shall 
give me back time ? Who shall compensate to me those 
years I cannot recall ? How dearly have I paid for a titled 
husband .? Should I wish you less wise, that I might enjoy 
more happiness } I cannot find that in my heart. Yet 
Providence has wisely placed the real blessings of life 

\ within the reach of moderate abilities ; and he who is wiser 

than his neighbour sees so much more to pity and lament, 

that I doubt whether the balance of happiness is in his scale. 

, I feel a disposition to quarrel with a race of beings who 

V have cut me off, in the midst of my days, from the only 

^ society I delighted in. "Yet no man liveth for himself," 

says an authority I will not dispute. Let me draw satisfac- 



LETTERS. 133 

tion from this source, and, instead of murmuring and repin- \ 
ing at my lot, consider it in a more pleasing view. Let me / / 
suppose, that the same gracious Being, who first smiled 1/ 
upon our union and blessed us in each other, endowed my ^ 
friend with powers and talents for the benefit of mankind, , 
and gave him a willing mind to improve them for the ser-, 
vice of his country. You have obtained honor and reputa- 
tion at home and abroad. ! may not an inglorious peace 
wither the laurels you have won. 

I wrote you by Captain Grinnell. The Firebrand is in 
great haste to return, and I fear will not give me time to 
say half I wish. I want you to say many more things to 
me than you do ; but you write so wise, so like a minister 
of state. JLknow your embarrassments. Thus again I pay , 
for titles. Life takes its complexion from inferior things.! 
It is little altentions and assiduities^^that sweeten the bitter/ 
draught and smooth the rugged road?) 

I have repeatedly expressed my desire to make a part of 
your family. But " Will you come and see me ? " cannot 
be taken in that serious light I should choose to consider an 
invitation from those I love. I do not doubt but that you 
would be glad to see me, but I know you are apprehensive 
of dangers and fatigues. I know your situation may be 1 
unsettled, and it may be more permanent than I wish it. I 
Only think how the words, "three, four, and five years' f 
absence," sound } They sink into my heart with a weight * 
I cannot express. Do you look like the miniature you V 
sent ? I cannot think so. But you have a better likeness, 
I am told. Is that designed for me ? Gracious Heaven ! , 
restore to me the original, and I care not who has the ; 
shadow. 

We are hoping for the fall of Gibraltar, because we 
imagine that will facilitate a peace ; and who is not weary 
of the war .? The French fleet still remain with us, and 
the British cruisers insult them. More American vessels 
have been captured since they have lain here than for a 
year before ; the General Greene is taken and carried into 
Halifax, by which, I suppose, I have lost some small bun- 



134 LETTERS. 

dies or packages. Beals told me that you gave him seven 
small packages, which he delivered Captain Bacon for me. 
The prisoners have all arrived, except Savil, who is yet in 
France. I mentioned to you before, that some of them had 
been with me, and offered to repay the money with which 
you supplied them. I could only tell them, that I had never 
received a line from you concerning the matter, and that I 
chose first to hear from you. I would not receive a farthing, 
unless I had your express direction, and your handwriting 
to prove, that what you had done was from your private 
purse, which I was confident was the case, or you would 
have been as ready to have relieved others, if you had any 
public funds for that purpose, as those which belonged to 
this town. I found a story prevailing, that what you had 
done was at the public expense. This took its rise either 
from ignorance or ingratitude ; but it fully determined me 
to receive your direction. The persons who have been 
with me are the two Clarks, the two Beales, and Job Field. 
Adieu, my dear friend. Ever, ever, yours, 

Portia. 



J 



to JOHN ADAMS. 

\| 13 November, 1782. 

aiY DEAKEST FPJEND, 

. I HAVE lived to see the close of the third year of our sepa- 
i ration. This is a melancholy anniversary to me, and many 
' tender scenes arise in my mind upon the recollection. I 
feel unable to sustain even the idea, that it will be half that 
period ere we meet again. Life is too short to have the 
dearest of its enjoyments curtailed ; the social feelings grow 
callous by disuse, and lose that pliancy of affection which 
sweetens the cup of life as we drink it. The rational plea- 
sures of friendship and society, and the still more refined 
sensations of which delicate minds only are susceptible, like 
the tender blossom, when the rude northern blasts assail 



LETTERS. 135 

them, shrink within and collect themselves together, depriv- 
ed of the all-cheering and beamy influence of the sun. The 
blossom falls and the fruit withers and decays ; but here 
the similitude fails, for, though lost for the present, the sea- 
son returns, the tree vegetates anew, and the blossom again 
puts forth. 

But, alas ! with me, those days which are past are gone 
for ever, and time is hastening on that period when I must 
fall to rise no more, until mortality shall put on immortality, 
and we shall meet again, pure and disembodied spirits. 
Could we live to the age of the antediluvians, we might 
better support this separation ; but, when threescore years 
and ten circumscribe the life of man, how painful is the 
idea, that, of that short space, only a few years of social 
happiness are our allotted portion. 

Perhaps I make you unhappy. No. You will enter witl^ 
a soothing tenderness into my feelings. I see in your eye^ 
the emotions of your heart, and hear the sigh that is wafted\ 
across the Atlantic to the bosom of Portia. But the philo-'^ 
sopher and the statesman stifles these emotions, and regains 
a firmness which arrests my pen in my hand. 

25 November. 

I last evening received a line from Boston to hasten my 
letter down or I should again lose an opportunity of con- 
veyance. I was most unfortunate by the FirehrancVs sail- 
ing and leaving all my letters behind. A storm prevented 
my sending on the day appointed, and she sailed by sunrise 
the next morning. Though my letters were in town by 
nine o'clock, they missed. I know, if she arrive, how dis- 
appointed you will feel. 

1 received from France by the Alexander yours, bearing 
no date, but, by the contents, written about the same time 
with those I received by Mr. Guild. Shall I return the 
compliment, and tell you in a poetical style, 

" Should at my feet the ^vorld's great master fall, . 

Himself, his world, his throue, I 'd scorn them all.'' i / 

No. Give me the man I love ; you are neither of an age\ ^ 



136 LETTERS. 

/or temper to be allured by the splendor of a court, or the 

Ismiles of princesses. I never suffered an uneasy sensation 

on that account. I know I have a right to your whole heart, 

J because my own never knew another lord ; and such is my 

confidence in you, that if you were not withheld by the 

I strongest of all obligations, those of a moral nature, your 

1 honor would not suffer you to abuse my confidence. 

But whither am I rambling ? We have not any thing in 
the political way worth noticing. The fleet of our allies 
still remains with us. 

Who is there left that will sacrifice as others have done ? 
Portia, I think, stands alone, alas, in more senses than one. 
This vessel will convey to you the packets designed for the 
Firehrand. I hope, unimportant as they are, they will not 
be lost. 

Shall I close here, without a word of my voyage } I be- 
lieve it is best to wait a reply, before I say any thing further. 
Our friends desire me to remember them to you. Your 
daughter, your image, your superscription, desires to be 
affectionately remembered to you. O, how many of the 
sweet domestic joys do you lose by this separation from 
your family. I have the satisfaction of seeing my children 
\^ thus far in life behaving with credit and honor. God grant 
the pleasing prospect may never meet with an alloy, and 
return to me the dear partner of my early years, rewarded 
I for his past sacrifices by the consciousness of having been 
extensively useful, not having lived to himself alone ; and 
.may the approving voice of his country crown his later 
days in peaceful retirement, in the affectionate bosom of 

Portia. 



TO JOHN ADAMS. 

\/23 December, 17S2. 
:my dearest feiend, 

I HAVE omitted writing by the last opportunity to Holland, 
because I had but small fahh in the designs of the owners 
or passengers ; and I had just written you so largely, by a 



LETTERS. 137 

vessel bound to France, that I liad nothing new to say. 
There are few occurrences in this northern climate, at this\ 
season of the year, to divert or entertain you; and, in the 
domestic way, should I draw you the picture of my heart, i 
it would be what I hope you still would love, though it con- 
tained nothing new. /The early possession you obtained i 
there, and the absolute power you have ever maintained 
over it, leave not the smallest space unoccupied, i I look 
back to the early days of our acquaintance and friendship) 
as to the days of love and innocence, and, with an inde- 
scribable pleasure, I have seen near a score of years rol| 'U 
over our heads, with an affection heightened and improved * 
by time ; nor have the dreary years of absence in the small-j 
est degree effaced from my mind the image of the dear, 
untitled man to whom I gave my heart. I cannot sometimes' 
refrain considering the honors with which he is invested, as ' 
badges of my unhappiness. The unbounded confidence I ' 
have in your attachment to me and the dear pledges of our 
affection, has soothed the solitary hour, and rendered your | 
absence more supportable ; for, had I loved you with the 
same affection, it must have been misery to have doubted. 
Yet a cruel world too often injures my feelings, by wonder- 
ing how a person, possessed of domestic attachments, can > 
sacrifice them by absenting himself Jbr years. >/ 

"If you had known," said a person to me the other daj?-, 
"that Mr. Adams would have remained so long abroad, 
would you have consented that he should have gone ? " I 
recollected myself a moment, and then spoke the real dic- 
tates of my heart. " If I had known, Sir, that Mr. Adams 
could have effected what he has done, I would not only have 
submitted to the absence I have endured, painful as it has 
been, but I would not have opposed it, even though three 
years more should be added to the number, (which Heaven 
avert !) I feel a pleasure in being able to sacrifice my sel- i 
fish passions to the general good, and in imitating the ex- 
ample, which has taught me to consider myself and family/ 
but as the small dust of the balance, when compared with' 
the great community." 



138 LETTERS. 

It is now, my dear friend, a long, long time, since I had 
a line from you- The fate of Gibraltar leads me to fear, 
that a peace is far distant, and that I shall not see you, — 
God only knows when. I shall say little about my former 
request ; not that my desire is less, but, before this can reach 
you, 'tis probable I may receive your opinion; if in favor 
of my coming to you, I shall have no occasion to urge it 
further ; if against it, I would not embarrass you by again 
requesting it. I will endeavour to sit down and consider it 
as the portion allotted me. My dear sons are well. Their 
application and improvement go hand in hand. Our friends 
all desire to be remembered. The fleet of our allies expects 
to sail daily, but where destined we know not. A great 
harmony has subsisted between them and the Americans 
ever since their residence here. This letter is to go by the 
/ns, which sails with the fleet. I hope it will reach you in 
safety. 

Adieu, my dear friend. Why is it, that I hear so seldom 
from my dear John ? But one letter have I ever received 
from him since he arrived in Petersburgh. I wrote him by 
the last opportunity. Ever remember me, as I do you, 
with all the tenderness, which it is possible for one object to 
feel for another, which no time can obliterate, no distance 
alter, but which is always the same in the bosom of 

Portia. 



TO JOHN ADAMS. 

28 April, 1783. 



MY DEAREST FRIEND, 



At length an opportunity offers, after a space of near five 
months, of again writing to you. Not a vessel from any 
port in this State has sailed since January, by which I could 
directly convey you a line. I have written twice by way 
of Virginia, but fear the letters will never reach you. From 



LETTERS. 139 

you, I have lately received several letters containing the 
most pleasing intelligence. 

" Peace o'er the world her olive branch extends." 

Hail, " Goddess, heavenly bright, 
Profuse oi joy and pregnant w^ith delight." 

The garb of this favorite of America is woven of an ad- 
mirable texture, and proves the great skill, wisdom and 
abilities of the master workmen. It was not fabricated in 
the loom of France, nor are the materials English, but they 
are the product of our own American soil, raised and nur- 
tured, not by the gentle showers of Heaven, but by the hard 
labor and indefatigable industry and firmness of her sons, 
and watered by the blood of many of them. May its dura- 
tion be in proportion to its value, and, like the mantle of the 
prophet, descend with blessings to generations yet to come. 
And may you, my dearest friend, return to your much loved 
solitude, with the pleasing reflection of having contributed 
to the happiness of millions. 

We have not received any account of the signing the 
definitive treaty, so that no public rejoicings have taken 
place as yet. The fifth article in the treaty has raised the 
old spirit against the Tories to such a height that it would 
be at the risk of their lives, should they venture here. It 
may subside after a while, but I question whether any State 
in the Union will admit them, even for twelve months. 
What then would have been the consequence, if compensa- 
tion had been granted them .? 

Your Journal has afforded me and your friends much 
pleasure and amusement. You will learn, perhaps, from 
Congress, that the Journal you meant for Mr. Jackson, was, 
by some mistake,^ enclosed to the Minister for Foreign 
Affairs, and consequently came before Congress, with other 
public papers. The Massachusetts delegates applied for it, 
but were refused it. Mr. Jackson was kind enough to wait 

1 It was this mistake which furnished the principal accusation made 
against Mr. Adams in Alexander Hamilton's celebrated pamplilet, published 
in 1800, upon the eve of the Presidential election. 



140 



LETTERS. 



upon me, and show me your letter to him, and the other 
papers enclosed ; and I communicated the Journal to him. 
Mr. Higginson writes, that it was moved in Congress by 
Hamilton, of Virginia, and Wilson of Pennsylvania, to cen- 
sure their ministers for departing from their duty, in not 
adhering to their instructions, and for giving offence to the 
Court of France by distrusting their friendship. They, 
however, could not carry their point. It was said, the 
instruction alluded to was founded upon reciprocity, and 
that Count de Vergennes had not acted upon that principle. 
When these gentry found, that it would not be considered 
in the light in which they wished, they gave out, that, if no 
more was said upon that subject, the other would drop. 
This is all I have been able to collect. My intelligence is 
very imperfect^ since Mr. Lovell left Congress. Mr. Gerry, 
I believe, is determined to go again. I shall then have a 
friend and correspondent who will keep me informed. 

Upon receiving a letter from you, in which you desire 
me to come to you, should you be long detained abroad, I 
took the liberty of writing to Dr. Lee,^ requesting him to 
give me the earliest intelligence respecting the acceptance 
of your resignation. I do not think it will be accepted, by 
what I have already learnt. If it is not, I shall still feel 
undetermined what to do. From many of your letters, I 
was led to suppose you would not return without permission. 
Yet I do not imagine the bare renewal of a former commis- 

1 Tliis will account for the en'ors, which are many and stiiking- in tin's 
paragraph. No motion of the kind alluded to appears in the Journal of Con- 
gress. But by the papers of Mr. Madison, lately published, we find that it 
was made, and particularly directed against Mr. Adams. It was oflered, 
however, by Mr. Mercer of Virginia, and seconded by Mr. Madison himself, 
for reasons which are stated by the latter ; but' it was found not to be ac- 
ceptable to a large proportion of the members, particularly to the Eastern 
delegates, and was, therefore, never pressed to a decision. Neither Mr. 
Hamilton of New York, nor Mr. Wilson of Pennsylvania, appears to have 
been anxious to adopt it. 

Upon tills, the most controverted and debatable ground of tlie history of 
our Revolution, which has been elaborately occupied of late by Mr. Sparks, 
in his various contributions to it, the present is not the fitting occasion to add 
a word of commentary. — See the Papers of James Madison, p. 407. 

2 Ai'thur Lee, then a member of Congress from Virginia. 



LETTERS. 141 

sion would induce you to tarry. I shall not run the risk, 
unless you are appointed Minister at the Court of Great 
Britain. 

Our friends are all well, and desire to be affectionately 
remembered to you. Where is our son ? I hear no more 
of him than if he was out of the world. You wrote me in 
yours of December 4th, that he was upon his journey to 
you, but I have never heard of his arrival. Need I add how 
earnestly I long for the day when Heaven will again bless 
us in the society of each other? Whether upon European 
or American ground, is yet in the book of uncertainty ; but, 
to feel entirely happy and easy, I believe it must be in our 
own republican cottage, with the simplicity which has ever 
distinguished it and your ever affectionate 

Portia. 

29 April. 

I last evening received yours of February 18th,' in which 
you are explicit with regard to your return. I shall, there- 
fore, (let Congress renew or create what commission they 
please,) at least wait your further direction, though you 
should be induced to tarry abroad. I have taken no step 
as yet with regard to coming out, except writing to Dr. Lee, 
as mentioned before. Heaven send you safe to your ever 
affectionate 

Portia. 



TO JOHN ADAMS. 

Braintree, 20 June, 17S3. 

MY DE-OIEST FRIEND, 

If I was certain I should welcome you to your native land 
in the course of the summer, I should not regret Mr. Smith's 
going abroad without me. Should it be otherwise, should 
you still be detained abroad, I must submit, satisfied that 

* See the note of Mr. Adams of this date. 



142 LETTERS. 

you judge best, and that you would not subject me to so 
heavy a disappointment, or yourself to so severe a mortifi- 
cation as I flatter myself it would be, but for the general 
good. A European life would, you say, be the ruin of our 
children. If so, I should be as loth as you to hazard their 
imbibing sentiments and opinions, which might make them 
unhappy in a sphere of life, which 'tis probable they must 
fill, not by indulging in luxuries for which it is more than 
possible they might contract a taste and inclination, but in 
studious and laborious pursuits. 

You have before this day received a joint commission for 
forming a commercial treaty with Britain. I am at a loss to 
determine whether you will consider yourself so bound by it, 
as to tarry longer abroad. Perhaps there has been no junc- 
ture in the public affairs of our country, not even in the 
hour of our deepest distress, when able statesmen and wise 
counsellors were more wanted than at the present day. 
Peace abroad leaves us at leisure to look into our own do- 
mestic affairs. Although, upon an estimate of our national 
debt, it appears but as the small dust of the balance when 
compared to the object we have obtained, and the benefits 
we have secured, yet the restless spirit of man will not be 
restrained ; and we have reason to fear, that domestic jars 
and confusion will take place of foreign contentions and 
devastation. Congress have commuted with the army, by 
engaging to them five years* pay in lieu of half-pay for life. 
With security for this, they will disband contented ; but our 
wise legislators are about disputing the power of Congress 
to do either, without considering their hands in the mouth 
of the lion, and that, if the just and necessary food is not 
supplied, the outrageous animal may become so ferocious 
as to spread horror and devastation. Another Theseus may 
arise, who, by his reputation and exploits of valor, his per- 
sonal character and universal popularity, may destroy our 
Amphictyonic system, and subjugate our infant republic to 
monarchical domination. 

Our House of Representatives is this year composed of 
\more than a hundred new members, some of whom, no 



LETTERS. 143 

doubt, are good men. Nearly all the able and skilful mem- 
bers, who composed the last House, have lost their seats by 
voting for the return of Mr. Brattle, notwithstanding the 
strongest evidence in his favor, and the many proofs which 
were produced of his friendly conduct towards America. ^ 
For this crime, our worthy friend Mr. Cranch was dropped 
by this town. The Senate is a loser this year, by the resig- ! 
nation of some excellent members. We have in this State \ 
an impost of five per cent., and an excise act, whilst the 
neighbouring States have neither. Foreigners, finding this ( 
the case, carry their cargoes to other states. At this the 
merchant grumbles, the farmer groans with his taxes, and 
the mechanic for want of employ. Heaven avert, that, like 
the Greek republics, we should, by civil dissension, weaken 
our power and crush our rising greatness, that the blood of 
our citizens should be shed in vain, and the labor and toil of 
our statesmen be finally baffled through niggardly parsi- 
mony, lavish prodigality, or ignorance of our real interests. 
We want a Solomon in wisdom, to guide and conduct this 
great people at this critical era, when the counsels which 
are taken and the measures which are pursued will mark 
our future character, either with honor and fame, or disgrace 
and infamy. In adversity, we have conducted with prudence 
and magnanimity. Heaven forbid that we should grow 
giddy with prosperity ; or the height, to which we have 
soared, render a fall conspicuously fatal. 

Thus far I had written when your welcome favor of 
j\Iarch 28th 1 reached me. I was not disappointed in find- 
ing you uncertain with regard to the time of your return. 
Should the appointment, which I fear and you have hinted 
at, take place, it would indeed be a dull day to me. I have 
not a wish to join in a scene of life so different from that, 
in which 1 have been educated, and in which my early, 
and, I must suppose, happier days, have been spent. Curi- 
osity satisfied, and I shall sigh for tranquil scenes, 

" And wish that Heaven had left me still 
The whispering zephyr and the purling rill." 

1 See Mr. Adams's letter of this date. 



144 LETTERS. 

Well-ordered home is my chief delight, and the affectionate, 
domestic wife, with the relative duties which accompany- 
that character, my highest ambition._^It was the disinter- 
ested wish of sacrificing my personal feelings to the public 
utility, which first led me to think of unprotectedly hazard- 
ing a voyage. I say unprotectedly, for so I consider every 
lady, who is not accompanied by her husband. This objec- 
tion could only be surmounted by the earnest wish I had to 
soften those toils which were not to be dispensed with ; and, 
if the public welfare required your labors and exertions 
abroad, I flattered myself that, if I could be with you, it 
might be in my power to contribute to your happiness and 
pleasure. But the day is now arrived, when, with honor 
and well-earned fame, you. may return to your native land ; 
when I cannot any longer consider it as my duty to submit 
to a further separation ; and when it appears necessary, that 
those abilities, v/hich have crowned you with laurels abroad, 
shall be exerted at home for the public safety. 
" I do not wish you to accept an embassy to England, 
should you be appointed. .This little cottage has more 
i heart-felt satisfaction for you than the most brilliant court 
ican afford. 

My dear John, where is he ? I long to see him. 1 have 
been very anxious about him. Such a winter journey ! I 
hope he is with you. I want to receive a letter from him. 
I will bid you good night. Yours, 

Portia. 



TO JOHN ADAMS. 

19 November, 1753. 

MY DEAEEST FEIEND, 

Your favor, dated at Amsterdam in July, was last evening 
handed me, and this evening your letter ^ of the 10th of 
September, by Colonel Ogden, reached me. I had for some 

^ See Mr. Adam-s's note of this date. 



LETTERS. 145 

time supposed that the delay of public business would retard 
your return ; and, knowing that the definitive treaty was 
not completed until September, and that the commercial 
treaty was still to form, I had little reason to expect you, 
unless your state of health required an immediate resigna- 
tion of all public business. Your letter, therefore, which 
informs me of your determination to pass another winter 
abroad, is by no means unexpected. That we must pass it 
with a vast ocean between us is a reflection no ways 
pleasurable, yet this must be the case. I had much to do 
to persuade myself to venture a summer passage, but a 
winter one I never could think of encounterincr. I am too 
much of a coward. It is now the middle of November. It 
would be December or January, before I could possibly 
adjust all my affairs; and I know of no person with whom 
I am acquainted, except Mr. Jackson of Newbury port, who 
is now going abroad. Mr. Temple and family sail this 
month. Besides, there is a stronger objection with me than 
even a winter's voyage. Congress have not appointed any 
person yet to the Court of Britain. There are many who 
wish for that place. Many who have a more splendid title, 
and many, more thousands to claim it with. 1 know Mr. 
Jay has written pressingly to Congress in your favor, and 
absolutely declined it himself; but whether you will finally 
be the person is among the uncertain events. One thing, 
however, is certain ; that I do not wish it. I should have 
liked very well to have gone to France and resided there 
a year ; but to think of going to England in a public char- 
acter, and engaging, at my time of life, in scenes quite 
new, attended with dissipation, parade, and nonsense, — I 
am sure I should make an awkward figure. The retired 
domestic circle, " the feast of reason and the flow of soul," 
are my ideas of happiness, and my most ardent wish is to 
have you return and become master of the feast. My health 
is infirm. I am still subject to a severe nervous pain in my 
head, and fatigue of any kind will produce it. Neither of 
' us appears to be built for duration. Would to Heaven, the 
few remaining days allotted us might be enjoyed together. 

10 



146 LETTERS. 

It has been my misfortune, that I could not attend to your 
health, watch for your repose, alleviate your hours of anx- 
iety, and make you a home wherever you resided. More, 
says a skilful doctor, depends upon the nurse than the 
physician. My determination is to tarry at home this win- 
ter ; and, if I cannot prevail upon you to return to me in 
the spring, you well know that I may be drawn to you, 
provided there is any stability in Congress. One strong tie, 
which held me here, is dissolved. My dear parent^ used 
to say, " You must never go, child, whilst I live." It is far 
from being my inclination. 

Mr. Thaxter will be able to give me, when he arrives, 
the best intelligence upon the subject. I wrote largely to 
you last week. I hope this letter will go by a French brig. 

Adieu, and believe me, whether present or absent. 

Most affectionately yours. 



TO JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 

Braintree, 20 November, 1783. 

This evening, as I was sitting with only your sister by my 
side, who was scribbling to some of her correspondents, my 
neighbour Field, entered with, " I have a letter for you. 
Madam." My imagination was wandering to Paris, rumi- 
nating upon the long, long absence of my dear son and his 
parent, so that I was rather inattentive to what he said, until 
he repeated, " I have letters for you from abroad." The 
word " abroad," roused my attention, and I eagerly seized 
the letters, the handwriting and seal of which gave me 
hopes, that I was once more about to hear from my young 
wanderer ; nor was I disappointed. 

After two years' silence, and a journey of which I can 
scarcely form an idea, to find you safely returned to your 

' The death of the Rev. Mr. Smith, the father of Mrs. Adams, took place 1 
flot long before the date of this letter. ^ 



LETTERS. 147 

parent, to hear of your health and to see your improve- 
ment ! You cannot know, should I describe to you, the 
feelings of a parent. Through your father, I sometimes 
Iieard from you, but one letter only ever reached me afler\ 
you arrived in Russia. Your excuses, however, have weight' 
and are accepted ; but you must give them further energy 
by a ready attention to your pen in future. Four yearsl 
have already passed away since you left your' native land^ 
and this rural cottage ; humble indeed when compared to t\\e\ 
palaces you have visited, and the pomp you have been 
%vitness to ; but I dare say, you have not been so inattentive 
an observer as to suppose, that sweet peace and contentment 
cannot inhabit the lowly roof and bless the tranquil inhab- 
itants, equally guarded and protected in person and property 
in this happy country as those who reside in the most 
elegant and costly dwellings. If you live to return, I can 
form to myself an idea of the pleasure you will take in 
treading over the ground and visiting every place your early 
years were accustomed wantonly to gambol in ; even the 
rocky common and lowly whortleberry bush will not be 
without their beauties. ; 

My anxieties have been and still are great, lest tha 
numerous temptations and snares of vice should vitiatey 
your early habits of virtue, and destroy those principles, 
which you are now capable of reasoning upon, and discern- \ 
ing the beauty and utility of, as the only rational source of 
happiness here, or foundation of felicity hereafter. ^ Placed 
as we are in a transitory scene of probation, drawing nigher 
and still nigher day after day to that important crisis which 
must introduce us into a new system of things, it ought 
certainly to be our principal concern to become qualified for 
our expected dignity. 

What is it, that affectionate parents require of their 

1 The early promise of John Quincy Adams, ahhough fully appreciated 
by his parents, awakened in them a corresponding- degree of anxiety for his 
safety wiiilst in Europe. A few letters addressed to him by Ms father, at 
this time in Holland, and breathing the same spirit with these from his 
mother in America, may serve to illustrate his mode of acting upon the 
mind and principles of his son. They will be found in the Appendix No. 1. 



148 LETTERS. 

children, for all their care, anxiety, and toil on their 
account ? Only that they would be wise and virtuous, 
benevolent and kind. 

Ever keep in mind, my son, that your parents are your 
disinterested friends, and that if, at any time, their advice 
militates with your own opinion or the advice of others, you 
ought always to be diffident of your own judgment ; because 
you may rest assured, that their opinion is founded on 
experience and long observation, and that they would not 
direct you but to promote your happiness. Be thankful to a 
kind Providence, who has hitherto preserved the lives of 
your parents, the natural guardians of your youthful years. 
With gratitude I look up to Heaven, blessing the hand 
which continued to me my dear and honored parents until I 
was settled in life ; and, though now I regret the loss of 
them, and daily feel the want of their advice and assistance, 
I cannot suffer as I should have done, if I had been early 
deprived of them. 

You will doubtless have heard of the death of your worthy 
grandpapa before this reaches you. He left you a legacy 
more valuable than gold or silver ; he left you his blessing 
and his prayers that you might retui'n to your country and 
friends, improved in knowledge and matured in virtue ; that 
you might become a useful citizen, a guardian of the laws, 
liberty, and religion of your country, as your father (he was 
pleased to say) had already been. Lay this bequest up in 
your memory, and practise upon it ; believe me, you will 
find it a treasure that neither moth nor rust can devour. 

I received letters from your father last evening, dated in 
Paris, the 10th of September, informing me of the necessity 
of his continuance abroad this winter. The season is so 
far advanced that I readily sacrifice the desire of seeing 
him to his safety ; a voyage upon this coast at this season is 
fraught with dangers. He has made me a request that I 
dare not comply with at present. No husband, no son, to 
accompany me upon the boisterous ocean, to animate my 
courage and dispel my fears, I dare not engage with so 
formidable a combatant. If I should find your father fixed 



LETTERS. 149 

in the spring, and determined to continue abroad a year or 
two longer, the earnest desire I have to meet him and my 
dear son might overcome the reluctance I feel at the idea 
of engaging in a new scene, and the love I have for domes- 
tic attachments and the still calm of life. But it would be 
more agreeable to me to enjoy all my friends together in 
my own native land ; from those who have visited foreign 
climes I could listen with pleasure to the narrative of their 
adventures, and derive satisfaction from the learned detail, 
content, myself, that 

" The little learning I have gained, 
Is all from t-unple nature drained." 

I have a desire that you might finish your education at our 
University, and I see no chance for it unless you return in 
the course of the year. Your cousin, W. Cranch, expects 
to enter next July. He would be happy to have you his 
associate. I hope your father will indulge you with a visit 
to England this winter. It is a country I should be fond of 
your seeing. Christianity, which teaches us to forgive our 
enemies, prevents me from enjoining upon you a similar 
vow to that which Hamilcar obtained from his son Hannibal, 
but I know not how to think of loving those haughty 
islanders. 

Your friends send you their affectionate regards ; and I 
enjoin it upon you to write often to your ever affectionate 
mother, 

A. Adams. 



TO JOHN ADAMS. 

Braintree, 18 December, 1783. 

MY DEAREST FRIEND, 

I RETURNED last evening from Boston, where I went at the 
kind invitation of my uncle and aunt, to celebrate our an- 
nual festival. Dr. Cooper being dangerously sick, I went 



150 ^ LETTERS. 

to hear Mr. Clark, who is settled with Dr. Chauncy. This 
gentleman gave us an animated, elegant, and sensible dis- 
course, from Isaiah, 55th chapter, and 12th verse. " For 
ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace ; the 
mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into 
singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands." 

Whilst he ascribed glory and praise unto the Most High, 
he considered the worthy, disinterested, and undaunted 
patriots as the instruments in the hand of Providence for 
accomplishing what was marvellous in our eyes. He re- 
capitulated the dangers they had passed through, and the 
hazards they had run ; the firmness which had, in a par- 
ticular manner, distinguished some characters, not only 
early to engage in so dangerous a contest, but, in spite of 
our gloomy prospects, to persevere even unto the end, until 
they had obtained a peace, safe and honorable, large as our 
desires, and much beyond our expectations. 

How did my heart dilate with pleasure, when, as each 
event was particularized, I could trace my friend as a prin- 
cipal in them ; could say it was he who was one of the first 
in joining the band of patriots, who formed our first national 
council ; it was he, who, though happy in his domestic at- 
tachments, left his wife, his children, then but infants, even 
surrounded with the horrors of war, terrified and distressed, 
the week before the memorable 19th of April, — left them 
to the protection of that Providence which has never for- 
saken them, and joined himself undismayed to that respect- 
able body, of which he was a member. Trace his conduct 
through every period, you will find him the same undaunted 
character, encountering the dangers of the ocean, risking 
captivity and a dungeon ; contending with wickedness in 
high places ; jeoparding his life, endangered by the in- 
trigues, revenge, and malice of a potent, though defeated 
nation. These are not the mere eulogiums of conjugal 
aflTection, but certain facts and solid truths. My anxieties, 
my distresses, at every period, bear witness to them ; though 
now, by a series of prosperous events, the recollection is 
more sweet than painful. 



LETTERS. 151 

Whilst I was in town, Mr. Dana arrived very unexpect- 
edly ; for 1 had not received your letters by Mr. Thaxter. 
My uncle fortunately discovered him as he came up State 
Street, and instantly engaged him to dine with him, acquaint- 
ing him that I was in town and at his house. The news soon 
reached my ears ; " Mr. Dana arrived," — " Mr. Dana ar- 
rived," — from every person you saw; but how was I 
affected ? The tears involuntarily flowed from my eyes. 
Though God is my witness, I envied not the felicity of 
others, yet my heart swelled with grief ; and the idea that 
I, I only, was left alone, recalled all the tender scenes of 
separation, and overcame all my fortitude. I retired, and 
reasoned myself into composure sufficient to see him with- 
out a childish emotion. He tarried but a short time, anxious, 
as you may well imagine, to reach Cambridge. He promised 
me a visit with his lady in a few days, to which I look for- 
ward with pleasure. 

I reached home last evening, having left Abby in town to 
make her winter visit. I found Mr. Thaxter just arrived be- 
fore me. It was a joyful meeting to both of us, though I 
could prevail with him to stay only for half an hour. His 
solicitude to see his parents was great, and though I wished 
his continuance with me, yet I checked not the filial flow 
of affection. Happy youth ! who has parents still alive 
to visit, parents who can rejoice in a son returned to them 
after a long absence, uninjured in his morals, improved in 
his understanding, with a character fair and untainted. 

But, O ! my dearest friend, what shall I say to you in re- 
ply to your pressing invitation ? I have already written to 
you in answer to your letters, which were dated September 
10th, and reached me a month before those by Mr. Thaxter. 
I related to you all my fears respecting a winter's voyage. 
My friends are all against it, and Mr. Gerry, as you will see 
by the copy of his letter enclosed, has given his opinion upon 
well grounded reasons. If I should leave my affairs in the 
hands of my friends, there would be much to think of and 
much to do, to place them in that method and order I would 
wish to leave them in. Theory and practice are two very 



152 LETTERS. 

different things, and the object is magnified as I approach 
nearer to it. I think if you were abroad in a private char- 
acter, and necessitated to continue there, I should not hesi- 
tate so much at coming to you ; but a mere American as I 
\am, unacquainted with the etiquette of courts, taught to say 
the thing I mean, and to wear my heart in my countenance, 
*•! am sure I should make an awkward figure ; and then it 
I would mortify my pride, if I should be thought to disgrace 
' you. Yet, strip royalty of its pomp and power, and what 

are its votaries more than their fellow worms ? 
y I have so little of the ape about me, that I have refused 
every public invhation to figure in the gay world, and seques- 
tered myself in this humble cottage, content with rural life 
and my domestic employment, in the midst of which I have 
sometimes smiled upon recollecting that I had the honor of 
being allied to an ambassador. I am not acquainted with 
the particular circumstances attending the renewal of your 
commission. If it is modelled so as to give you satisfaction 
I am content, and hope you will be able to discharge it so 
as to receive the approbation of your sovereign. 

Adieu. 



TO JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 

Braintree, 26 December, 1783. 

MY DEAR SON, 

YouK letters by Mr. Thaxter, I received, and was not a lit- 
tle pleased with them. If you do not write with the precision 
of a Robertson, nor the elegance of a Voltaire, it is evident 
you have profited by the perusal of them. The account of 
your northern journey, and your observations upon the Rus- 
sian government, would do credit to an older pen. 

The early age at which you went abroad gave you not an 
opportunity of becoming acquainted with your own country. 
Yet the revolution, in which we were engaged, held it up in 



LETTERS. 153 

SO striking and important a light, that you could not avoid 
being in some measure irradiated with the view. The char- 
acters with which you were connected, and the conversation 
*you continually heard, must have impressed your mind with 
a sense of the laws, the liberties, and the glorious privileges, 
which distinguish the free, sovereign, independent States of 
America. 

Compare them with the vassalage of the Russian govern- 
ment you have described, and say, were this highly favored 
land barren, as the mountains of Switzerland, and covered 
ten months in the year with snow, would she not have the 
advantage even of Italy, with her orange groves, her breath- 
ing statues, and her melting strains of music ? or of Spain, 
with her treasures from Mexico and Peru ? not one of which 
can boast that first of blessings, the glory of human nature, 
the inestimable privilege of sitting down under their vines 
and fig-trees, enjoying m peace and security whatever 
Heaven has lent them, having none to make them afraid. 

Let your observations and comparisons produce in your 
mind an abhorrence of domination and power, the parent of 
slavery, ignorance, and barbarism, which places man upon 
a level with his fellow tenants of the woods ; 

"A day, an hour, of virtuous liberty 
Is worth a whole eternity of bondage." 

You have seen power in its various forms, — a benign 
deity, when exercised in the suppression of fraud, injustice, 
and tyranny, but a demon, when united with unbounded 
ambition, — a wide-wasting fury, who has destroyed her 
thousands. Not an age of the world but has produced chart 
acters, to which whole human hecatombs have been sacri- 
ficed. 

What is the history of mighty kingdoms and nations, but 
a detail of the ravages and cruelties of the powerful over the 
weak ? Yet it is instructive to trace the various causes, 
which produced ihe strength of one nation, and the decline 
and weakness of another ; to learn by what arts one man 
has been able to subjugate millions of his fellow creatures, 



154 LETTERS. 

the motives which have put him upon action, and the causes 
of his success ; — sometimes driven by ambition and a lust 
of power ; at other times swallowed up by religious enthusi- 
asm, blind bigotry, and ignorant zeal ; sometimes enervated 
with luxury and debauched by pleasure, until the most pow- 
erful nations have become a prey and been subdued by these 
Sirens, when neither the number of their enemies, nor the 
prowess of their arms, could conquer them. History informs 
us that the Assyrian empire sunk under the arms of Cyrus, 
with his poor but hardy Persians. The extensive and opu- 
lent empire of Persia fell an easy prey to Alexander and a 
handful of Macedonians ; and the Macedonian empire, when 
enervated by the luxury of Asia, was compelled to receive 
the yoke of the victorious Romans. Yet even this mistress 
of the world, as she is proudly styled, in her turn defaced 
her glory, tarnished her victories, and became a prey to lux- 
ury, ambition, faction, pride, revenge, and avarice, so that 
^Jugurtha, after having purchased an acquittance for the 
blackest of crimes, breaks out into an exclamation, " O city, 
ready for sale, if a buyer rich enough can be found ! " 

The history of your own country and the late revolution 
are striking and recent instances of the mighty things 
achieved by a brave, enlightened, and hardy people, deter- 
mined to be free; the very yeomanry of which, in many 
instances, have shown themselves superior to corruption, as 
Britain well knows, on more occasions than the loss of her 
Andre. Glory, my son, in a country which has given birth to 
characters, both in the civil and military departments, which 
may vie with the wisdom and valor of antiquity. As an 
immediate descendant of one of those characters, may you 
be led to an imitation of that disinterested patriotism and 
that noble love of your country, which will teach you to 
despise wealth, titles, pomp, and equipage, as mere external 
advantages, which cannot add to the internal excellence of 
your mind, or compensate for the want of integrity and 
virtue. 

May your mind be thoroughly impressed with the abso- 
lute necessity of universal virtue and goodness, as the only 



LETTERS. 155 

sure road to happiness, and may you walk therein with 
undeviating steps, — is the sincere and most affectionate 
wish of 

Your mother, 

A. Adams. 



TO JOHN ADAMS. 

15 March, 1784. 

MY DEAREST FEIEND, 

I HAVE not received a line from you, nor heard a syllable, 
since yours of 18th November, which I have already ac- 
knowledged. I am impatient now to receive further intelli- 
gence from you, and to learn where you are. Captain 
Love, in the ship Rosamond, bound to England, must have 
arrived before this time ; by him, I trust you have received 
many letters from me. I have had but one opportunity of 
writing since, which was by a vessel bound to Amsterdam. 
In that letter I was particular with regard to the manner in 
which I had adjusted our affairs so as to leave them. Mr. 
Jones designs to have his vessel ready to sail the latter end 
of May, and from present prospects I think it most probable 
that I shall accompany Mr. Jones and his lady. 

We have intelligence here of the fluctuating state of the 
British ministry. Whether it bodes well or ill to America, 
time must determine. It is not a matter of so much conse- 
quence to us as it has been in times past. The Court of 
this Commonwealth is now sitting. They have taken up 
the recommendation of Congress respecting the refugees, 
and there has been, as you may well suppose, much debat- 
ing upon it. It is generally thought that the Court will rise 
without any thing final taking place. Dr. Gordon, it seems, 
has been making use of a private letter of yours to him 
upon this subject, the contents of which are variously 
reported. The committee who have this matter under 



156 LETTERS. 

consideration have, as I am informed, sent for the letter, 
which will speak for itself. I do not feel very anxious with 
regard to it, since I think I know your prudence so well 
that you would not communicate to that gentleman any 
private sentiments which you would be loth should be 
made public. One gentleman sends me word, " Mr. Adams 
has written to Judge such-a-one. Pray, desire him to be 
cautious. He is not his friend." And another tells me 
" Mr. Adams has written a letter to Mr. Speaker. He is 
not to be confided in. He has no discretion. He commu- 
nicates the contents of his letter to persons who are not to 
be trusted. He is in a certain box without knowing; it." 
" And pray," I asked these persons, " why do you not make 
use of your own pens to give these cautions, and your rea- 
sons for so doing ; why do you not give Mr. Adams infor- 
mation respecting those matters which it is of importance to 
him to know .? " " O ! I am so perplexed and worried with 
business that I have not time," " Very well, Sir, these 
gentlemen of whom you speak, I suppose have found time 
to write to Mr. Adams. One of them I know, has, I know 
Mr. Adams has always had a friendship for that gentleman, 
a friendship of an early date, contracted when they were at 
College, and, I believe, the regard he possesses for Mr. 
Adams is sincere." " I don't pretend to say that it is not, 
but he wants prudence." 

I have not heard any thing from Congress since my last 
ib you ; nor can I learn a single step they have taken since. 
I am now going to write to Mr. Gerry for information. Our 
family is well. Of whom does it consist.'' of myself and 
niece, and two domestics. Abby is at Milton. General 
Warren is likely to lose his son Charles, whom they appre- 
hend to be far gone in a hectic. Colonel Quincy died last 
week of the disorder which I mentioned to you. He made 
a donation in his will of a hundred pounds to the society 
of arts and sciences. 

I send this letter by the way of Lisbon, and beg you to 
write me by every opportunity. 

Yours most tenderly and affectionately, 

A. A. 



LETTERS. 157 



TO MRS. CRANCH. 

On board ship Active, Latitude 44, Longitude 34. 
Tuesday, 6 July, 1784. From the Ocean. 

MY DEAR SISTER, 

I HAVE been sixteen days at sea, and have not attempted to 
write a single letter. 'T is true, 1 have kept a journal when- 
ever I was able ; but that must be close locked up, unless I 
was sure to hand it you with safety. 

'T is said of Cato, the Roman Censor, that one of the 
three things, which he regretted during his life, was going 
once by sea when he might have made his journey by land. 
I fancy the philosopher was not proof against that most dis- 
heartening, dispiriting malady, sea-sickness. Of this I am 
very sure, that no lady would ever wish a second time to 
try the sea, were the objects of her pursuit within the reach 
of a land journey. I have had frequent occasion, since I 
came on board, to recollect an observation of my best 
friend's, " that no being in nature was so disagreeable as a 
lady at sea," and this recollection has in a great measure 
reconciled me to the thought of being at sea without him ; 
for one would not wish, my dear sister, to be thought of in 
that light by those, to whom we would wish to appear in 
our best array. The decency and decorum of the most 
delicate female must in some measure yield to the necessi- 
ties of nature ; and, if you have no female capable of ren- 
dering you the least assistance, you will feel grateful to any 
one who will feel for you, and relieve or compassionate 
your sufferings. 

And this was truly the case of your poor sister and all 
her female companions, when not one of us could make 
her own bed, put on pr take off her shoes, or even lift a 
finger. As to our other clothing, we wore the greater part 
of it until we were able to help ourselves. Added to this 
misfortune, Briesler, my man-servant, was as bad as any of 
us. But for Job, I know not what we should have done. 



158 LETTERS. 

Kind, attentive, quick, neat, he was our nurse for two days 
and nights ; and, from handhng the sails at the top-gallant- 
mast head, to the more feminine employment of making 
wine-cordial, he has not his equal on board. In short, he 
is the favorite of the whole ship. Our sickness continued 
for ten days, with some intermissions. We crawled upon 
deck whenever we were able ; but it was so cold and damp, 
that we could not remain long upon it. And the confine- 
ment of the air below, the constant rolling of the vessel, 
and the nausea of the ship, which was much too tight, con- 
tributed to keep up our disease. The vessel is very deep 
loaded with oil and potash. The oil leaks, the potash 
smokes and ferments. All adds to the jlavor. When you 
add to all this the horrid dirtiness of the ship, the slovenli- 
ness of the steward, and the unavoidable slopping and spill- 
ing occasioned by the tossing of the ship, 1 am sure you 
will be thankful that the pen is not in the hand of Swift or 
Smollet, and still more so that you are far removed from 
the scene. No sooner was I able to move, than I found it 
necessary to make a bustle amongst the waiters, and de- 
mand a cleaner abode. By this time, Briesler was upon 
his feet, and, as I found I might reign mistress on board 
without any offence, I soon exerted my authority with 
scrapers, mops, brushes, infusions of vinegar, &;c., and in a 
few hours you would have thought yourself in a different 
ship. Since which, our abode is much more tolerable, and 
the gentlemen all thank me for my care. Our captain is 
an admirable seaman, always attentive to his sails and his 
rigging ; keeps the deck all night ; careful of everybody on 
board ; watchful that they run no risk ; kind and humane 
to his men, who are all as still and quiet as any private 
family; nothing cross or dictatorial in his manners; a much 
more agreeable man than I expected to find him. He can- 
not be called a polished gentleman ; but he is, so far as I 
have seen, a very clever man. ' 

We have for passengers, a Colonel Norton, who is a 
grave, sedate man, of a good natural understanding, im- 
proved by business and converse with mankind; his literary 



LETTERS. 159 

accomplishments not veiy great. A Mr. Green, a Scotch- 
man, I am persuaded ; a high prerogative man ; plumes 
himself upon his country ; haughty and imperious, but en- 
deavours to hide this with the appearance of politeness, 
which, however, he is too apt to transgress upon any occa- 
sion when a subject arises which does not entirely agree 
with his sentiments ; he calls himself an Englishman ; has 
been in the British service during the war, as a secretary 
on board some of the British admirals. He is a man of 
sense and of reading, the most so of any we have on board. 
Next to him is Dr. Clark, to whom we are under obligations 
for every kindness and every attention, that it is in the 
power of a gentleman and a physician to show. Humane, 
benevolent, tender, and attentive not only to the ladies, but 
to every one on board, to the servant as well as the master, 
he has rendered our voyage much more agreeable and 
pleasant than it possibly could have been without him. His 
advice we have stood in need of, and his care we have felt 
the benefit' of. A brother could not have been kinder, nor 
a parent tenderer, and it was all in the pleasant, easy, cheer- 
ful way, without any thing studied, labored, or fulsome ; the 
natural result of a good heart, possessed with the power of 
making others happy. 

'T is not a little attention that we ladies stand in need of 
at sea ; for it is not once in the twenty-four hours that we 
can even cross the cabin without being held or assisted. 
Nor can we go upon deck without the assistance of two 
gentlemen, and when there, we are always bound into our 
chairs. Whilst you, I imagine, are scorching under the 
midsummer heat, we can comfortably bear our double cal- 
ico gowns, our baize ones upon them, and a cloth cloak in 
addition to all these. 

Mr. Foster is another passenger on board, a merchant, a 
gentleman soft in his manners, very polite and kind ; loves 
domestic life, and thinks justly of it ; I respect him on this 
account. Mr. Spear brings up the rear, a single gentle- 
man, with a great deal of good humor, some wit, and much 
drollery ; easy and hapyy, blow high or blow low ; can 



160 LETTERS. 

sleep and laugh at all seasons. These are our male com- 
panions. I hardly thought a Lieutenant Mellicot worth 
mentioning, who is, I believe, a mere pot-companion, 
though he keeps not with us except at meal-times, when he 
does not behave amiss. My namesake ^ you know. She is 
a modest, pretty woman, and behaves very well. 

I have accustomed myself to writing a little every day, 
when I was able, so that a small motion of the ship does 
not render it more unintelligible than usual ; but there is no 
time, since I have been at sea, when the ship is what we 
call still, that its motion is not equal to the moderate rock- 
ing of a cradle. As to wind and weather, since we came 
out, they have been very fortimate for us in general. We 
have had three calm days, and two days contrary wind, 
with a storm, I called it ; but the sailors say it was only a 
breeze. This was upon the banks of Newfoundland, the 
wind At east ; through the day we could not sit in our 
chairs, only as some gentleman sat by us with his arm fast- 
ened into ours, and his feet braced against a table or chair, 
that was lashed down with ropes ; bottles, mugs-^ plates, 
crashing to pieces, first on one side and then on the other ; 
the sea running mountain-high, and knocking against the 
sides of the vessel as though it would burst them. When 
I became so fatigued with the incessant motion as not to be 
able to sit any longer, I was assisted into my cabin, where 
I was obliged to hold myself in with all my might the 
remainder of the night. No person, who is a stranger to 
the sea can form an adequate idea of the debility occa- 
sioned by sea-sickness. The hard rocking of a ship in a 
storm, and the want of sleep for many nights, altogether 
reduce one to such a lassitude that you care little for your 
fate. The old seamen thought nothing of all this, nor once 
entertained an idea of danger. Compared to what they 
have suffered, I do suppose it was trifling ; but to me it was 
alarming, and I most heartily prayed, if this was only a 
breeze, to be delivered from a storm. 

1 A Mrs. Adams, a passenger, bearing the same name, but in no way 
related to the author of the letter. 



LETTERS. 161 

Our accommodations on board are not what I could wish, 
or hoped for. AVe cannot be alone, only when the gentle- 
men are thoughtful enough to retire upon deck, which they 
do for about an hour in the course of the day. Our state- 
rooms are about half as large as cousin Betsey's little 
chamber, with two cabins in each. Mine had three, but I 
could not live so. Upon which Mrs. Adams's brother gave 
up his to Abby,' and we are now stowed two and two. 
This place has a small grated window, which opens into 
the companion way, and by this is the only air admitted.^ 
The door opens into the cabin where the gentlemen all 
sleep, and where we sit, dine, &c. We can only live with' 
our door shut, whilst we dress and undress. Necessity has j 
no law ; but what should I have thought on shore, to have i 
laid myself down in common with half a dozen gentlemen ? 
We have curtains, it is true, and we only in part undress, . 
about as much as the Yankee bundlers ; but we have the sat- 
isfaction of falling in with a set of well-behaved, decent gen- 
tlemen, whose whole deportment is agreeable to the strict- \ 
est delicacy, both in word and action. 

If the wind and weather continue as favorable as they 
have hitherto been, we expect to make our passage in 
thirty days, which is going a hundred miles a day. 'T is 
a vast tract of ocean which we have to traverse ; I have 
contemplated it with its various appearances. It is indeed 
a secret world of wonders, and one of the sublimest objects 
in Nature. 

" Thou mak'st the foaming billows roar, 
Thou mak'st the roai'ixig billows sleep." 

They proclaim the Deity, and are objects too vast for the 
control of feeble man. That Being alone, who " maketh 
the clouds his chariot, and rideth upon the wings of the 
wind," is equal to the government of this stupendous part 
of creation. 

And now, my dear sister, after this minute account of 
my important self, which, judging by myself, you take an 

1 The daughter of Mrs. Adams. 
11 



162 LETTERS. 

affectionate interest in, I call upon you to inquire after your 
welfare, my much esteemed brother's, and my dear niece's. 
Not a day or night but I visit your calm retreat, look at my 
own deserted habitation, and recollect past endearments 
with a melancholy composure, and really am so vain as to 
commiserate you on account of the vacuity I fancy my ab- 
sence occasions. 

" We are so formed," says an ingenious writer, " as to 
be always pleased with somewhat in prospect, however dis- 
tant, or however trivial." Thus do I gratify myself with 
the idea of returning to my native land, though the pros- 
pect is distant. " Pleasures," says Pope, " are ever in our 
hands or eyes." I have lost part of the other line but the 
idea is, that if we are not in the present possession of them, 
they rise to us in prospect.' I will now tell you where I 
am sitting. At a square table in the great cabin, at one 
corner of which are Colonel Norton and Mr. Foster, 
engaged in playing backgammon ; at the other, Mr. Green, 
writing; and at the fourth. Dr. Clark, eating ham. Behind 
Colonel Norton, Mr. Spear, reading Thomson's " Seasons," 
with his hat on. Young Lawrence behind me, reading 
Anson's " Voyages ; " Esther,^ knitting ; the steward and 
boys, bustling about after wine and porter ; and last of all, 
as the least importantly employed, Mrs. Adams and Abby, 
in their cabin asleep, and this at twelve o'clock in the day. 
O shame ! The Captain comes down and finds me writ- 
ing ; kindly tenders me some large paper to write upon ; I 
believe he thinks I shall have occasion for it. This man 
has a kindness in his disposition, which his countenance 
does not promise. Mr. Green comes down from deck, and 
reports that the mate says we are sixteen hundred miles on 
our way. This is good nearing ; I can scarcely realize 
myself upon the ocean, or that I am within fourteen hun- 
dred miles of the British coast. I rejoice with trembling ; 
painful and fearful ideas will arise and intermix with the 

^ " Pleasures are ever in our hands and eyes ; 
And when in act ihey cease, in prospect rise." 

2 A female domestic of Mrs. Adams. 



LETTERS. 163 

pleasurable hopes of a joyful meeting of my long absent 
friend. I frequently recollect some lines of Miss Morels, 
in her " Sir Eldred of the Bower," describing a mixture of 
hope and anxiety. She says : 

" 'T was such a sober sense of joy, 
As angels well might keep ; 
A joy chastised by piety, 
A joy prepared to weep." 

I shall write, whilst I am on board, whenever I can catch 
a quiet time. It is an amusement to me ; reading tires one ; 
work I do sometimes, but when there is no writing, there is 
less pleasure in working ; I shall keep the letter open until 
I arrive, and put it on board the first vessel I find coming to 
America. 'Tis impossible for me to find any variety at 
sea to entertain my friends with, so that this letter, with all 
its inaccuracies, must be submitted to them. Do not how- 
ever expose me, especially where I have a little credit ; you 
know very well that affection and intimacy will cover ii 
multitude of faults. 



7 July. 

If I did not write every day, I should lose the days of 
the month and of the week ; confined all day on account of 
the weather, which is foggy, misty, and wet. You can 
hardly judge how irksome this confinement is. When the 
whole ship is at our service, it is little better than a prison. 
We suppose ourselves near the Western Islands. O dear 
variety ! how pleasing to the human mind is change. I can- 
not find such a fund of entertainment within myself as not 
to require outward objects for my amusement. Nature 
abounds with variety, and the mind, unless fixed down by 
habit, delights in contemplating new objects, and the variety 
of scenes which present themselves to the senses were cer- 
tainly designed to prevent our attention from being too long 
fixed upon any object. " This," says a late celebrated 
medical writer, ** greatly conduces to the health of the 



164 LETTERS. 

animal frame ; your studious people and your deep thinkers," 
he observes, " seldom enjoy either health or spirits." 

I have been in much trouble, upon looking over my 
letters since I came on board, to find those given me by my 
friend, Mrs. Warren, missing. I cannot account for it in any 
other way, than that I must have put them into the pocket of 
the chaise, when I received them, which I recollect; and I 
did not think to take them out. You remember the day 
with all the circumstances, and will accordingly apologize 
to our friend, whose goodness, I know, will pardon the 
omission, nor add to my mortification by charging it to 
inattention. 

8 July. 

Another wet, drizzly day, but we must not complain, for 
we have a fair wind, our sails all square, and go at seven 
knots an hour. I have made a great acquisition. I have 
learnt the names and places of all the masts and sails ; and 
the Captain compliments me by telling me that he is sure I 
know well enough how to steer, to take a trick at the helm.- 
I may do pretty well in fair weather, but 't is your mascu- 
line spirits that are made for storms. I love the tranquil 
scenes of life. Nor can I look forward to those in which 
'tis probable I shall soon be engaged with those pleasurable 
ideas, which a retrospect of the past presents to my mind. 

I went last evening upon deck, at the invitation of Mr. 
Foster, to view that phenomenon of Nature, a blazing ocean. 
A light flame spreads over the ocean, in appearance, with 
thousands of thousands of sparkling gems, resembling our 
fire-flies in a dark night. It has a most beautiful appear- 
ance. I never view the ocean without being filled with 
ideas of the sublime, and am ready to break forth with the 
Psalmist, " Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God 
Almighty ; in wisdom has thou made them all." 

Saturday, 10th. 

Yesterday was a very pleasant day. Very little wind, 



LETTERS. 165 

but Q. fine sun and a smooth sea. I spent most of the day 
upon deck, readuig ; it was not, however, so warm but a 
baize gown was very comfortable. The ship has gradually 
become less irksome to me. If our cook was but tolerably 
clean, I could relish my food. But he is a great, dirty, 
lazy negro, with no more knowledge of cookery than a 
savage, nor any kind of order in the distribution of his 
dishes; but on they come, higgledy-piggledy, with a leg of 
pork all bristly; a quarter of an hour after, a pudding ; or, 
perhaps, a pair of roast fowls, first of all, and then will 
follow one by one a piece of beef, and when dinner is nearly 
completed, a plate of potatoes. Such a fellow is a real 
imposhion upon the passengers. But gentlemen know but 
little about the matter, and if they can get enough to eat 
five times a day, all goes well. We ladies have not eaten, 
upon our whole passage, more than just enough to satisfy 
nature, or to keep body and soul together. 

Thursday, 15th of July. 
On Sunday I wrote part of a letter to sister Shaw, since 
which I have not used my pen, even in my journal. Mon- 
day we had a fair wind, but too much to be able to write, 
as it was right aft, and we pitched exceedingly, which is a 
motion more disagreeable to me than the rocking, though 
less fatiguing. On Tuesday a cahn. Should you not sup- 
pose that in a calm we at least had the satisfaction of lying 
still ? Alas ! it is far otherwise, as my flesh and bones 
witness; a calm generally succeeds a storm or a fresh 
breeze ; the sea has a great swell after the wind is silent, 
so that the ship lies entirely at the mercy of the waves, and 
is knocked from side to side with a force you can form no 
idea of without experience. I have been more wearied and 
worn out with the motion and exercise of a calm than in 
riding fifty miles in a day. We have had three days in 
succession nearly calm ; the first is the most troublesome, 
as the motion of the sea subsides in a degree. It is, how- 
ever, a great trial of one's patience, to think yourself within 
a few days of your desired port, to look at it as the pro- 
mised land, and yet to be held fast ; 



166 LETTERS. 

" Ye too, ye wind:?, I raise my voice to you. 
In what far diistant region oi" the sky. 
Hushed in deep silence, sleep you when 'tis calm? " 

I begin to think, that a calm is not desirable in any situ- 
ation in life. Every object is most beautiful in motion ; a 
ship under sail, trees gently agitated with the wind, and a 
fine woman dancing, are three instances in point, Man was 
made for action and for bustle too, I believe. I am quite 
out of conceit with calms. I have more reason for it, too, 
than many others, for the dampness of the ship has for sev- 
eral days threatened me with the rheumatism ; and yester- 
day morning I was seized with it in good earnest. I could 
not raise my head, nor get out of bed, without assistance. I 
had a good deal of fever, and was very sick, I was fearful 
of this before I came to sea, and had proper medicine put 
up, which the doctor administered. What with that, good 
nursing and rubbing, flannel, &c., I am able to-day to sit up 
in my bed and write, as you see. To-day we have a small 
wind, but 'tis right ahead. This is still mortifying, but 
what we had reason to expect. Patience, patience, patience, 
is the first, second, and third virtue of a seaman, or, rather, 
as necessary to him as to a statesman. Three days' good 
wind would give us land. 

Friday. 

AVe have another wet, misty day ; the cabin so damp 
that I dare not sit in it ; I am therefore obliged, confined as 
it is, to keep in my own little room, and upon my bed. I 
long for the day which will give us land. Esther makes 
but a poor hand at sea. Scarcely a day, but what she is 
sick some part of it. I hope she will be the better for it 
when she gets on shore. We have but one passenger whom 
we should have been willing to have been without. I have 
no particular reason to dislike him, as he is studiously com- 
plaisant to me ; but I know his politeness to me is not per- 
sonally upon my own f^ccount, but because of my connex- 
ion, which gives me importance sufficient to entitle me to 
his notice. Abby says he is exactly such a character as 
Mr. A . I really think there is a striking resemblance. 



LETTERS. 167 

He was always inquiring, " Who was such a general ? 
What was his origin and rank in life ? " I have felt a dis- 
position to quarrel with him several times, but have restrained 
myself, and only observed to him mildly, thai merit, not 
title, gave a man preeminence in our country ; that I did 
not doubt it was a mortifying circumstance to the British 
nobility to find themselves so often conquered by mechanics 
and mere husbandmen ; but that we esteemed it our glory 
to draw such characters not only into the field, but into the 
Senate ; and I believed no one would deny that they had 
shone in both. All our passengers enjoyed this conversa- 
tion, and the gentleman was civil enough to drop the subject; 
but the venom spits out very often ; yet the creature is sen- 
sible and entertaining when upon indifTerent subjects. He 
is a haughty Scotchman; he hates the French, and upon all 
occasions ridicules them and their country. I fancy* from 
his haughty airs, that his own rank in life has not been 
superior to those whom he affects to despise. He is not a 
man of liberal sentiments, and is less beloved than any pas- 
senger we have on board. A man's humor contributes 
much to the making him agreeable or otherwise. Dark 
and sour humors, especially those which have a spice of 
malevolence in them, are vastly disagreeable. Such men 
have no music in their souls. 1 believe he would hardly be 
so complaisant, if he knew how meanly I thought of him ; 
but he deserves it all ; his whole countenance shows his 
heart. 

Saturday, 17 July. 

Give me joy, my dear sister ; we have sounded to-day 
and found bottom, fifty-five fathom. We have seen, 
through the course of the day, twenty different sail, and 
spoke with a small boat upon a smuggling expedition^ 
which assured us we were within the Channel. 

18 July. 
This day four weeks, we came on board. Are you not 
all calculating to-day that we are near the land .'' Happily 



168 LETTERS. 

j'^ou are not wrong in your conjectures. I do not despair of 
seeing it yet before night, though our wind is very small 
and light. The captain has just been down to advise us, 
as the vessel is so quiet, to get what things we wish to cany 
on shore into our small trunks. He hopes to land us at 
Portsmouth, seventy miles distant from London, to-morrow 
or next day ; from thence we are to proceed, in post- 
chaises, to London. The ship may be a week in the Chan- 
nel before she will be able to get up. 



Deal, 20 July. 

Heaven be praised, I have safely landed upon the British 
coast. How flattering, how smooth the ocean, how delight- 
ful was Sunday, the 18th of July. We flattered ourselves 
with the prospect of a gentle breeze to carry us on shore at 
Portsmouth, where we agreed to land, as going up the Chan- 
nel always proves tedious ; but on Sunday night the wind 
shifted to the southwest, which, upon this coast, is the same 
with our northeast winds. It blew a gale on Sunday night, 
on Monday and Monday night, equal to an equinoctial. We 
were obliged to carry double-reefed topsails only, and what I 
added to our misfortunes was, that though we had made land 
the day before, it was so thick that we could not certainly 
determine what land it was. It is now Tuesday, and I have 
slept only four hours since Saturday night, such was the toss- 
ing and tumbling on board our ship. The captain never left 
the deck the whole time, either to eat or sleep, though they 
told me there was no danger ; nor do 1 suppose that there 
really was any, as we had sea-room enough. Yet, the 
great number of vessels constantly coming out of the Chan- 
nel, and the apprehension of being run down, or being nearer 
the land than we imagined, kept me constantly agitated. 
Added to this, I had a violent sick headache. O ! what 
would I have given to have been quiet upon the land. You 
will hardly wonder, then, at the joy we felt this day in see- 
ing the cliffs of Dover, Dover castle, and town. The wind 



i 



LETTERS. 169 

was in some measure subsided. It rained, however, and was 
as squally as the month of March ; the sea ran very high ; a 
pilot-boat came on board at about ten o'clock this morning. 
The captain came to anchor with his ship in the Downs, and 
the little town of Deal lay before us. Some of the gentle- 
men talked of going on shore with the pilot-boat, and send- 
ing for us if the wind subsided. The boat was about as 
large as a Charlestown ferry-boat, and the distance from the 
ship about twice as far as from Boston to Charlestown ; a 
shore as bold as Nantasket beach ; no wharf, but you must 
be run right on shore by a wave, where a number of men 
stand to catch hold of the boat and draw it up. The surf 
ran six feet high, but this we did not know until driven on 
by a wave ; for the pilots, eager to get money, assured the 
gentlemen they could land us safe, without our being wet ; 
and, as we saw no prospect of its being better through the 
day, we accordingly agreed to go. We were wrapped up 
and lowered from the ship into the boat ; the whole ship's 
crew eager to assist us ; the gentlemen attentive and kind as 
though we were all brothers and sisters. We have spent a 
month together, and were as happy as the sea would permit 
us to be. We set off from the vessel, now mounting upon 
the top of a wave high as a steeple, and then so low that the 
boat was not to be seen. I could keep myself up no other 
way than as one of the gentlemen stood braced up against 
the boat, fast hold of me, and I with both my arms round him ; 
the other ladies were held in the same manner, whilst every 
wave gave us a broadside, and finally a wave landed us with 
the utmost force upon the beach, the broadside of the boat 
right against the shore, which was owing to the bad manage- 
ment of the men, and the high sea. 

(Thus far I had proceeded in my account, when a sum- 
mons to tea prevented my adding more , since which I have 
not been able to take my pen. Though now, at my lodgings 
in London, I will take up the thread where I left it, until the 
whole ball is unwound. Every particular will be interesting 
to my friends, I presume, and to no others expose this in- 
correct scrawl.) 



170 LETTERS. 

We consequently all pressed upon the side next the shore, 
to get out as quick as possible, which we need not have done, 
if we had known what I afterwards found to be the case, 
that it was the only way in which we could be landed, and 
not, as I at first supposed, owing to the bad management of 
the boatmen. We should have sat still for a succession of 
waves to have carried us up higher, but the roar of them 
terrified us all, and we expected the next would fill our boat ; 
so out we sprang, as fast as possible, sinking every step into 
the sand, and looking like a parcel of Naiads, just rising from 
the sea. A public house was fortunately just at hand, into 
which we thankfully entered, changed our clothing, dried 
ourselves, and not being able to procure carriages that day, 
we engaged them for six o'clock the next morning, and took 
lodgings there, all of us, ten in number. Mr. Green set off 
immediately for London ; nobody mourned. We were all 
glad to retire early to rest. For myself, I was so faint and 
fatigued, that I could get but little. We rose at five, and, 
our post-chaises being all at the door, we set ofi', in the fol- 
lowing order ; Mr. Foster, myself, and Esther, in one. Dr. 
Clark and Abby in the second, Colonel Norton, Mrs. Adams 
and brother, in the third, and Mr. Spear and Lieutenant Mel- 
licot brought up the rear. Our first stage was eighteen miles, 
from Deal to Canterbury, where we breakfasted ; the roads 
are fine, and a stone a novelty ; I do not recollect to have 
seen one, except the pavements of Canterbury and other 
towns, from Deal to London, which is seventy-two miles. 
Vast fieldsof wheat, oats, English beans, and the horse-bean, 
with hops, areihe produce of the country through which we 
passed, which is cultivated like a garden down to the very 
edge of the road, and what surprised me was that very little 
was enclosed within fences. Hedge fences are almost the 
only kind you see ; no cattle at large without a herdsman ; 
the oxen are small, but the cows and sheep very large, such 
as I never saw before. When we arrive at the end of our 
stage, we discharge the first carriages, and call for new ones, 
which will be ready a few moments after you issue your or- 
ders. Call for breakfast, you have it, perhaps, in ten min- 



LETTERS. 171 

utes, for ten people, with the best of attendance, and at a 
reasonable price. Canterbury is a larger town than Boston. 
It contains a number of old Gothic cathedrals, which are all 
of stone, very heavy, with but few windows, which are grated 
with large bars of iron, and look more like jails for criminals, 
than places designed for the worship of the Deity. One 
would suppose, from the manner in which they are guarded, 
that they apprehended devotion would be stolen. They have 
a most gloomy appearance, and really made me shudder. 
The houses, too, have a heavy look, being chiefly thatched 
roofs, or covered with crooked brick tiles. Now and then 
you would see upon the road a large wood, looking like a 
forest, for a whole mile, enclosed with a high brick wall, or 
cemented stone ; an enormous iron gate would give one a 
peep, as we passed, of a large pile of building, which looked 
like the castles of some of the ancient barons ; but, as we 
were strangers in the country we could only conjecture what 
they were, and what they might have been. We proceeded 
from Canterbury to Rochester, about fifteen miles, another 
pretty town, not so large as the former. From thence to 
Chatham, where we stopped at a very elegant inn to dine. 
As soon as you drive into the yard, you have at these places 
as many footmen round you as you have carriages, who, 
with their politest airs, take down the step of your carriage, 
assist you out, inquire if you want fresh horses or carriages ; 
" Will supply you directly. Sir," is the answer ; a well 
dressed hostess steps forward, making a lady-like appear- 
ance, and wishes your commands ; if you desire a chamber, 
the chambermaid attends ; you request dinner, say in half 
an hour : the bill of fare is directly brought ; you mark 
what you wish to have, and suppose it to be a variety of 
fish, fowl, and meat, all of which we had, up to eight differ- 
ent dishes besides vegetables. The moment the time you 
stated is out, you will have your dinner upon table in as 
elegant a style as at any gentleman's table, with your pow- 
dered waiters, and the master or mistress always brings the 
first dish upon table in person. But you must know that 
travelling in a post-chaise is what entitles you to all this 
respect. 



172 LETTERS. 

From Chatham we proceeded on our way as fast as pos- 
sible, wishing to pass Blackheath before dark, Upon this 
road, a gentleman alone in a chaise passed us, and very 
soon a coach before us stopped, and there was a hue and 
cry, " A robbery, a robbery ! " The man in the chaise 
was the person robbed, and this in open day with carriages 
constantly passing. We were not a little alarmed, and 
every one was concealing his money. Every place we 
passed and every post-chaise we met was crying out, " A 
robbery!" Where the thing is so common,! was surprised 
to see such an alarm. The robber was pursued and taken 
in about two miles, and we saw the poor wretch, ghastly 
and horrible, brought along on foot ; his horse ridden by a 
person who took him, who also had his pistol. He looked 
like a youth of twenty only, attempted to lift his hat, and 
looked despair. You can form some idea of my feelings 
when they told him, " Ay, you have bat a short time ; the 
assize sits next month ; and then, my lad, you swing." 
Though every robber may deserve death, yet to exult over 
the wretched is what our country is not accustomed to. 
Long may it be free from such villanies, and long may it 
preserve a commiseration for the wretched. 

We proceeded, until at about eight o'clock I was set 
down at Low's Hotel in Co vent Garden, the Court end of 
the town. These lodgings I took only for one night, until 
others more private could be procured. As I found Mr. 
Adams was not here, I did not wish such expensive apart- 
ments. It was the hotel at which he kept, when he resided 
here. Mr. Spear set out in quest of Mr. Smith ; but he 
had received intelligence of my coming out with Captain 
Lyde, and had been in quest of me but half an hour before 
at this very place. Mr. Spear was obliged to go first to the 
custom-house, and, as good fortune would have it, Mr. 
Smith and Mr. Storer were near it and saw him alight from 
the coach, upon which he informed them of my arrival. 
Though a mile distant, they set out upon a full run, (they 
say,) and very soon, to our mutual satisfaction, we met in 
the hotel. " How do you } " and " How do ye ? " " We 



LETTERS. 173 

rejoice to see you here ; " and a thousand such kind of in- 
quiries as take place between friends, who have not seen 
each other for a long time, naturally occurred. My first 
inquiry was for Mr. Adams. I found that my son had been 
a month waiting for my arrival in London, expecting me 
with Callaghan, but that, upon getting letters by him, he 
returned to the Hague. Mr. Smith had received a letter 
from his father, acquainting him that I had taken passage 
with Captain Lyde. This intelligence he forwarded three 
days before I came, so that I hourly expect either Mr. 
Adams or Master John. I should have mentioned, that Mr. 
Smith had engaged lodgings for me, to which Mr. Storer 
and he accompanied me this morning, after paying a guinea 
and a half for tea last evening, and lodging and breakfast, 
a coach included, not however to carry me a greater dis- 
tance than from your house to our own. The gentlemen 
all took less expensive lodgings than mine, excepting Dr. 
Clark, who tarried with us. He said he would not quit us 
until we were fixed in our present hotel ; the direction to 
which is " Osborne's New Family Hotel, Adelphi, at Mrs. 
Sheffield's, No. 6." Here we have a handsome drawing- 
room, genteelly furnished, and a large lodging-room. We 
are furnished with a cook, chambermaid, waiter, &c., for 
three guineas a week ; but in this is not included a mouthful 
of victuals or drink, all of which is to be paid for separately. 

Friday, 24 July. 

I have little time for waiting now, I have so many visiters. 
I hardly know how 1o think myself out of my own country, 
I see so many Americans about me. The first persons who 
called to see me after my arrival here, were Mr. Jackson, 
Mr. Winslow Warren, Mr. Rogers, Mr. Ward Boylston, 
Mrs. Atkinson, and yesterday morning before I had break- 
fasted, (for the fashionable hours of the city had taken hold 
of me, not out of choice but necessity; Miss A. having a 
hair-dresser. I had directed breakfast at nine o'clock ; it 
was ten, however, but those were early visiting hours for 
this fine city, yet) whilst I was breakfasting, who should be 



174 ' » LETTERS. 

announced to me but Parson Waller and Mrs. Hallowell.?^ 
both appeared very glad to see me. Mrs. Hallowell treated 
me with her old affability and engaged me to dine with her 
to-day ; " not," says she, "(to a feast, for we make none ; 
but to an unceremonious family dinner^ Luxury," says 
sbe, " is the mode, but we know, too, Ko\v to practise fru- 
gality and economy." 

I am not a little surprised to find dress, unless upon pub- 
lic occasions, so little regarded here. The gentlemen are 
very plainly dressed, and the ladies much less so than with 
us. 'T is true, you must put a hoop on and have your hair 
dressed, but a common straw hat, no cap, with only a ribbon 
upon the crown, is thought dress sufficient to go into com- 
pany. Muslins are much in taste ; no silks but lutestrings 
worn ; but send not to London for any article you want ; 
you may purchase any thing you can name much lower in 
Boston. I went yesterday into Cheapside to purchase a {ew 
articles, but found every thing higher than in Boston, Silks 
are in a particular manner so ; they say, when they are 
exported, there is a drawback upon them which makes them 
lower with us. Our country, alas, our countr}^ ! they are 
extravagant to astonishment in entertainments compared 
with what Mr. Smith and Mr. Storer tell me of this. You 
will not find at a gentleman's table more than two dishes of 
meat, though invited several days beforehand. Mrs. Atkin- 
son went out with me yesterday, and Mrs. Hay, to the 
shops. I returned and dined with Mrs. Atkinson, by her 
invitation the evening before, in company with Mr. Smith, 
Mrs. Hay, Mr. Appleton. We had a turbot, a soup, and a 
roast leg of lamb, with a cherry pie. I was more gratified 
by the social, friendly style in which I was treated, than if 
a sumptuous feast had been set before me. Mr. Gorham, 
a Dr. Parker, Mr. Bromfield, and a Mr. Murray from the 
Hague, came to see me yesterday morning ; and, when I 
returned last evening, I found cards left by a number of 
gentlemen, some of whom I knew, others I did not ; but, 

1 Persons Avho left Massachusetts on account of tlieir adherence to the 
British side. 



LETTERS. 175 

knowing Mr. Adams, and being Americans, they called to 
make their compliments. Prentice Gushing I met with yes- 
terday at Mr. A.'s. I am going to-day to see Mr. Copley'^s 
pictures. I am told he has an excellent likeness of Mr. 
Adams. Mr. Murray informed me, that he left Mr. Adams 
last Friday excessively anxious for my arrival. He had 
removed Mr. Dumas and family in expectation of my com- 
ing. He says, John, with whom he went to the Hague, was 
melancholy when Callaghan arrived without me, and Mr. 
Adams more so. I have sent to-day by the post, to acquaint 
him with my being here, but hope every hour to see him 
or Mafeter John. 

The wind has prevented the arrival of the post. The 
city of London is pleasanter than I expected ; the buildings 
more regular, the streets much wider, and more sunshine 
than I thought to have found ; but this, they tell me, is the 
pleasantest season to be in the city. At my lodgings I am 
as quiet as at any place in Boston ; nor do I feel as if it 
could be any other place than Boston. Dr. Clark visits us 
every day ; says he cannot feel* at home anywhere else ; 
declares he nas not seen a handsome woman since he came 

into the city ; that every old woman looks like Mrs. H , 

and every young one like — like the D — 1. They paint 
here nearly as much as in France, but with more art. The 
head-dress disfigures them in the eye of an American. I 
have seen many ladies, but not one elegant one since I 
came ; there is not to me that neatness in their appearance, 
which you ^see in our ladies. 

The American ladies are much admired here by the gen-\ 
tlemen, I am told, and in truth I wonder not at it. O, my\ 
country, my country ! preserve, preserve the little purity 
and simplicity of manners you yet possess. Believe me,\ 
they are jewels of inestimable vakie ; the softness, pecu- 
liarly characteristic of our sex, and which is so pleasing to\ 
the gentlemen, is wholly laid aside here for the masculine 
attire and manners of Amazonians. \ 

This moment a very polite card is delivered me from 
Mrs. Hallowelj, desiring me to remove my lodgings to her 



176 LETTERS. 

house whilst I continue in London ; to which I liave replied, 
with thanks, excusing myself, that I am very well accom- 
modated, and in hourly expectation of my son ; not the less 
obliged, however, by her politeness. Mr. Elworthy I have 
not yet seen, though I have had several messages from him. 
This is not owing to inattention in him, but to being informed 
that every thing was done for me before my arrival, which 
I stood in need of. Our ship is not yet got up the Channel ; 
what a time we should have had of it, if we had not landed. 
Mr. Smith expects to sail on Monday or Tuesday ; I shall 
keep open this letter until he goes ; let sister Shaw see it, 
and read such parts as you think proper to the rest of our 
friends ; but do not let it go out of your hands. I shall not 
have time to write to the rest of my friends ; they must not 
think hardly of me ; I could only repeat what 1 have here 
written, and I think it is best to have the whole budget to- 
gether ; besides, Abby writes to all her acquaintance, which 
must answer for me. Remember me to them all ; first, to 
my dear and aged parent,^ to whom present my duty; to 
Dr. Tufts, to my aunt, to uncle Quincy, to Mr. Wibird, to 
all my friends and neighbours. 

Sunday morning, 25 July. 

I went yesterday, accompanied by Mr. Storer and Mr. 
Smith, to Mr. Copley's, to see Mr. A^^^iTf^s's picture. ^ This, 
I am told, was taken at the request of Mr. Copley, and 
belongs to him. It is a full-length picture, very large, and 
a very good likeness. Before him stands the globe ; in his 
hand a map of Europe ; at a small distance, two female 
figures, representing Peace and Innocence. It is a most 
beautiful painting. From thence, we went to what is called 
Mr. Copley's exhibition. Here is the celebrated picture, 
representing the death of Lord Chatham in the House of 
Commons; his three sons around him, each with strong 
expressions of grief and agitation in his countenance. 
Every member is crowding around him with a mixture of 

1 The mother of Mr. Adams. 

2 This picture is now in. possession of the University at Cambridge. 



LETTERS. 177 

surprise and distress. I saw in this picture, what I have 
every day noticed since I came here, a strong likeness of 
some American or other ; and I can scarcely persuade 
myself that I have not seen this person, that, and the other, 
before, their countenances appear so familiar to me, and so 
strongly mark our own descent. There was another paint- 
ing, which struck me more than this. It is the death of 
Major Pierson, the particular account of which I enclose to 
you. I never saw painting more expressive than this. I 
looked upon it until I was faint ; you can scarcely believe 
but you hear the groans of the sergeant, who is wounded, 
and holding the handkerchief to his side, whilst the blood 
streams over his hand. Grief, despair and terror are 
strongly marked, whilst he grows pale and faint with loss 
of blood. The officers are holding Major Pierson in their 
arms, who is mortally wounded, and the black servant has 
levelled his piece at the officer who killed him. The dis- 
tress in the countenances of i^ women, who are. flying, 
one of whom has a baby in her arms, is beautifully repre- 
sented ; but descriptions of these things give you but a faint 
resemblance of what in reality they are. 

From thence I went to see the celebrated Mrs. Wright, 
Messrs. Storer and Smith accompanying us. Upon my 
entrance, (my name being sent up,) she ran to the door, 
and caught me by the hand ; " Why, is it really and in 
truth Mrs. Adams ? and that your daughter ? Why, you 
dear soul you, how young you look. Well, I am glad to see 
you. All of you Americans ? Well, I must kiss you all." 
Having passed the ceremony upon me and Abby, she runs 
to the gentlemen. " I make no distinction," says she, and 
gave them a hearty buss ; from which we would all rather 
have been excused, for her appearance is quite the slattern. 
" I love everybody that comes from America," says she; 
" here," running to her desk, " is a card I had from Mr. 
Adams; I am quite proud of it; he came to see me, and 
made me a noble present. Dear creature, I design to have 
his head. There," says she, pointing to an old man and 
woman, who were sitting in one corner of the room, " are 

12 



178 LETTERS. 

my old father and mother; don't be ashamed of them 
because they look so. They were good folks ; " (these 
were their figures in wax-work ;) " they turned Quakers, 
and never would let their children eat meat, and that is the 
reason we were all so ingenious ; you had heard of the 
ingenious Mrs. Wright in America, I suppose ? " In this 
manner she ran on for half an hour. Her person and 
countenance resemble an old maiden in your neighbour- 
hood, Nelly Penniman, except that one is neat, the other 
the queen of sluts, and her tongue runs like Unity Badlam's. 
There was an old clergyman sitting reading a paper in the 
middle of the room ; and, though I went prepared to see 
strong representations of real life, I was effectually deceived 
in this figure for ten minutes, and was finally told that it 
was only wax. From Mrs. Wright's I returned to my 
hotel, dressed, and at four went to dine with Mrs. Hallo- 
well. Mr. H. had in the morning been to see me, and Mr. 
Thomas Boylston, both of whom urged me to take up my 
lodgings with Mrs. Hallowell. I chose to decline, but went 
and dined with them. Here I found Parson Walter. We 
had a handsome dinner of salt fish, pea soup, boiled fowl 
and tongue, roast and fried lamb, with a pudding and fruit. 
This was a little in the Boston style. Messrs. Smith and 
Storer dined with us. Mr. Hallowell lives handsomely, but 
not in that splendor which he did in Boston. ^ On Sunday, 
I engaged to take a coach for the day, which is only twelve- 
and-sixpence sterling, and go to church at the Foundling 
Hospital. Messrs. Atkinson, Smith, and Storer with me. 

Monday Morning. 
Well, my dear sister, if you are not tired with following 
me, I will carry you to the Foundling Hospital, where I 
attended divine service yesterday morning. Really glad I 
was that I could, after so long an absence, again tread the 
courts of the Most High, and I hope I felt not unthankful 
for the mercies I had received. 

1 He was Comptroller of the "Customs, under the British Government, in 
Boston. 



LETTERS. 179 

This hospital is a large, elegant building, situated in a 
spot as airy, and much more beautiful than Boston Common. 
The chapel, which is upon the second floor, is as large as 
what is called the Old South with us. There is one row of 
galleries : upon the floor of this chapel there are rows of 
seats like Concert Hall, and the pulpit is a small ornamented 
box, near the centre. There were about two thousand per- 
sons, as near as I could guess, who attended. In the gallery, 
opposite to where I sat, was the organ loft ; upon each side 
an alcove, with seats, which run up like a pyramid. Here 
the foundlings sat, upon one side the boys, upon the other 
the girls, all in uniform; none appeared under five, nor 
any older than twelve. About three hundred attended the 
service. The uniform of the boys was a brown cloth, with 
a red collar, and a red stripe upon the shoulder. The girls 
were in brown, with a red girdle round the waist, a checked 
stomacher and apron ; sleeves turned up, and white cloth 
caps with a narrow lace, cl^B^and neat as wax ; their gov- 
ernesses attended with them. They performed the vocal 
music ; one man and woman upon each side the organ, 
who sung an anthem ; both blind, and educated at this 
foundling hospital. When we came down, we went into 
the dining-rooms, which were upon each side of the ascent 
into the chapel ; here the tables were all arranged, and the 
little creatures curtsying and smiling; some as sweet 
children as ever you saw. There is an inscription over the 
door, in gold letters ; " Can a mother forget her sucking 
child," 6lc. In a hall are placed the pictures of many noted 
benefactors and founders of this institution. (I should have 
mentioned that the chapel windows are painted glass ; the 
arms and names of the most distino-uished benefactors are 
in the ditTerent squares of the glass.) We were shown into 
their bed-chambers, which are long, airy chambers, with 
ten or fifteen windows in each, and about fifty or sixty beds, 
placed in rows upon each side, covered with blue and white 
furniture check. At the head of the chamber is a bed for 
the governess. When you have seen one of them, you 
have a specimen of the whole. 



• 



180 ' LETTERS. ♦- 

I dined with Mr. and Mrs. Atkinson, in company wilh 
Messrs, Jackson, Smith, &c. ' Mr. Atkinson is a very mod- 
est worthy man, and Mrs. Atkinson a most amiable woman. 
You see no parade, no ceremony. I am treated with all 
the kindness of a sister, in as easy a way as I could wish. 
As I took the carriage for the day, after forenoon service, 
we rode out to see Mrs. Atkinson's twins, who are at nurse 
at Islington, about two miles from the city. It is a fine 
■ride. We went through a number of the great squares. 
Portland Square is one of the finest. In short, the repre- 
sentations, which you and I amused ourselves with looking 
at hot long ago, are very near the life. When we returned, 
we dined, and at six o'clock went to the Magdalen Hospital, 
which is three miles from where I dined ; for this is a mori' 
Straus great city. We were admitted with a ticket. This 
assembly was very full and crowded. Yet no children or 
servants are admitted. In slw^, I begin to hope that this 
people are more serious and religious than I feared they 
were. There is great decorum and decency observed. Here 
are only two small galleries, which hold the unhappy be- 
ings who are the subjects of this merciful institution. Those 
who attend the service are placed upon seats below, like 
Concert Hall. The building is about as large again as 
Braintree church, in a most delightful situation, surrounded 
by weeping willows. All the public buildings here have 
large open spaces around them, except those churches 
which are in the heart of the city. I observed, upon going 
in, a gallery before me, raised very high, and covered with 
green canvass. Here sat these unhappy women, screened 
from public view. You can discern them through the can- 
vass, but not enough to distinguish countenances. I ad- 
mired the delicacy of this thought. The singing was all 
performed by these females, accompanied with the organ ; 
the melancholy melody of their voices, the solemn sound of 
the organ, the serious and afiecting discourse of the preacher, 
together with the humiliating objects before me, drew tears 
from my eyes. The chapel to these apartments is always 
in the heart of the building ; the dining, working, and lodg- 
ing apartments surround them. 



f-^ LETTERS. 181 

Returned about eight o'clock ; found many cards left for 
me ; some from Virginians, some from Marylanders, some 
from Connecticut. Colonel Trumbull has called twice upon 
me, but 1 was so unfortunate as not to be at home. Amongst 
the Americans who called yesterday to see me during my 
absence, was Mr. Joy. He left his name and direction, 
with a polite billet, inviting me to dine with him on Tues- 
day, if I was not engaged ; and if I was, the first day I 
was disengaged. I have replied to him that I w^U wait 
upon him on Wednesday. Invited by ]\Ir. Murray to the 
play this evening ; declined going, in hopes my best friend 
will be here to attend me very soon ; besides, have no 
clothes yet which will do. No mail from Holland yet ar- 
rived ; the wind has been so contrary that two are now due. 
Dr. Clark, our constant and daily visiter, is just come in to 
drink tea with me. Messrs. Smith and Storer are here 
great part of the day. Ca^^in Lyde did not get up the 
Channel until Sunday, so ffli^I have no occasion to repent 
landing when I did ; contrary winds and bad weather pre- 
vented his coming up only with the tide ; his vessel, too, 
had like to have been sunk by a collier running foul of him. 
They did him a good deal of damage ; these are vessels 
that take pleasure in injuring others. He told me many 
dismal stories about coming up the Channel, which made 
me determined to land at any rate. 

On Saturday, Mr. Elworthy called upon me, and tendered 
me any service I could wish for. I thanked him, but Messrs. 
Smith and Storer and Dr. Clark render any other assistance 
unnecessary, as any and all of them are ready and willing 
to oblige me. On Sunday morning, Mr. and Mrs. Elworthy 
came to see me. She is a very agreeable woman, and 
Jonks like one of M5, that is, she had more of our American 
neatness about her than any lady 1 have seen ; for I am yet 
so impolite as not to be reconciled to the jaunty appearance 
and the elegant stoop. There is a rage of fashion which 
prevails here with despotic sway ; the color and kind of silk 
must be attended to, and the day for putting it on and off; 
no fancy to be exercised, but it is the fashion, and that is 



182 LETTERS. 

argument sufficient to put one in or out of countenance. I 
am coming on half-way. I breakfast at nine, and dine at 
three, when at home ; but I rise at six. I am not obliged 
to conform in that ; the other hours I am forced to submit 
to, upon account of company. This morning. Dr. Clark 
and Colonel Trumbull are to breakfast with me. I long for 
the hour, when I shall set off for the Hague, or see Mr. 
Adams here. I meet with so many acquaintances, that I 
shall feel loth to quit the city upon that account. There 
are no Americans in Holland, and the language will pre- 
vent any sociability but what I find in my own family ; but, 
having a house, garden, and servants at command, feeling 
at home will in some measure compensate for the rest. I 
have a journey of eighty miles to make, to Margate, before 
I can embark ; and, as soon as Mr. Jefferson arrives, I sup- 
pose we must go to France. I have not executed your 
orders with regard to satin, because, upon inquiry, I find 
you can buy cheaper with you. I have not found any 
thing, except shoes, that are lower ; such a satin as my 
black, you must give as much sterling for a yard, as I gave 
lawful money ; — no silks but lutestring, and those which 
are thinner, are worn at this season ; — mode cloaks, mus- 
lin and sarsnet, — gauze hats, bonnets, and ribbons, — 
every thing as light and thin as possible, — different gowns 
and skirts, — muslin skirts, flounced chintz, with borders 
white, with a trimming that looks like gartering ; — the silk, 
which is most in taste, is what is called " new-mown hay," 
— the pattern I enclose ; and this part of the letter is for 
the tasty folks of my acquaintance. Mr. Smith brings home 
a specimen of the newest fashioned hats. 

Tuesday Morning. 

Determined to tarry at home to-day, and see company. 
Mr. Joy came in and spent an hour. He is the same pleas- 
ing man you formerly knew him ; that bashful diffidence is 
supplied by manly confidence, and acquaintance with the 
world has given ease and politeness to his manners. He 
really is quite the accomplished gentleman, bears a very 



LETTERS. 183 

• 

good character, has made a great deal of money, and mar- 
ried a Yorkshire lady of handsome fortune about three 
months since. He again repeated his invitation to me to 
dine with him, accompanied by Mr. Smith. To-morrow, I 
go. Many gentlemen have called upon me this forenoon, 
so that I have only time to dress before dinner, which I 
order at an earlier hour than the London fashion. At three 
is my hour, and breakfast at nine. I cannot dine earlier, 
because from nine till three I am subject to company. From 
the hours of three till five and six, 1 am generally alone, or 
only Mr. Smith, or Mr. Storer here, to whom I am never 
denied. The servant will frequently come and ask me if I 
am at home. 

Wednesday. 

I have walked out to-day, for the first time, and a jaunt 
Mr. Storer has led me. I s^M not get the better of it for a 
week. The walking is ve^^easy here, the sides of the 
street being wholly of flat stones ; and the London ladies* 
walk a great deal, and very fast. My walk out and in was 
only four miles ; judge you then, what an effect it had upon 
me. I was engaged to dine out. I got home at one, but 
was obliged to lie upon the bed an hour, and have not re- 
covered from it yet. 

At four, I was obliged to go out. Mr. Joy lives three 
miles from where I lodge. The house in which he lives is 
very elegant, not large, but an air of taste and neatness is 
seen in every apartment. We were shown into the draw- 
ing-room, where he awaited us at the door, and introduced 
us to his lady and her sister. She is quite young, delicate 
as a lily, modest and diffident, not a London lady by any 
means. After we had dined, which was in company with 
five American gentlemen, we retired to the drawing-room, 
and there I talked off the lady's reserve, and she appeared 
agreeable. Her dress pleased me, and answered to the 
universal neatness of the apartments, furniture, and enter- 
tainment. It was a delicate blue and white copper- plate 
calico, with a blue lutestring skirt, flounced ; a muslin apron 



184 LETTERS. 

« 

and handkerchief, which are much more worn than gauze ; 
her hair, a fine black, dressed without powder, with a fash- 
ionable cap, and straw ribbons upon her head and breast, 
with a green morocco slipper. Our dinner consisted of fried 
fish of a small kind, a boiled ham, a fillet of veal, a pair of 
roast ducks, an almond pudding, currants and gooseberries, 
which in this country are very fine. Painted muslin is much 
worn here ; a straw hat with a deep crown, lined, and a 
white, green, or any colored ribbon you choose. I returned, 
and found a number of cards left by gentlemen who had 
called during my absence. To-morrow I am invited to dine 
again with Mr. Atkinson and lady. I feel almost ashamed 
to go again, but, not being otherwise engaged, they insist 
upon it. It is a thanksgiving day for the peace. I design 
to hear Mr. Duche, who ofiiciates at the Asylum or Orphan 
House. 



Thursday. 

I found myself so unwell, that I could not venture to-day 
into a crowded assembly. My walk yesterday gave me a 
pain in my head, and stiffened me so that I can scarcely 
move. Abby, too, has the London cold, which they say 
every body experiences, who comes here ; but Mr. and 
Mrs. Atkinson would not excuse my dining with them, and 
Charles came for us. We went and found the same friend- 
ly, hospitable attention, — nothing more on account of the 
day, — a neat, pretty dinner, consisting of two dishes and 
vegetables. After dinner returned the visit of Mr. and Mrs. 
Elworthy, who were very glad to see me. Mr. Elworthy 
carried us to Drapers' Hall. This is a magnificent build- 
ing, belonging to a company of that people, to which is a 
most beautiful garden. To walk in some of these places, 
you would think yourself in a land of enchantment. It 
would just suit my dear Betsey's romantic fancy. Tell her 
I design very soon to write to her. It shall be a description 
of some pretty scene at the Hague ; and Lucy shall have 
a Parisian letter ; but, writing to one, I think I am writing |j 
to you all. ^ 



LETTERS. 185 



Friday. 

To-day, my dear sister, I have determined upon tarrying 
at home, in hopes of seeing my son or his papa ; but, from a 
hint dropped by Mr. Murray, I rather think it will be my son, 
as political reasons will prevent Mr. Adams's journey here. 
Whilst I am writing, a servant in the family runs puffing in, 
as if he were really interested in the matter ; '' Young Mr. 
Adams is come." " Where, where is he .?" we all cried out. 
" In the other house. Madam ; he stopped to get his hair 
dressed." Impatient enough I was ; yet, when he entered, 
we had so many strangers, that I drew back, not really be- 
lieving my eyes, till he cried out, " O, my mamma and my 
dear sister ! " Nothing but the eyes, at first sight appeared 
what he once was. His appearance is that of a man, and 
in his countenance the most perfect good humor ; his con- 
versation by no means denies, his stature. I think you do 
not approve the word feelings^ but I know not what to sub- 
stitute in lieu, or even to describe mine. His sister, he says, 
he should have known in any part of the world. 

Mr. Adams chooses I should come to the Hague and travel 
with him from thence ; and says it is the first journey he 
ever looked forward to with pleasure, since he came abroad. 
I wish to set out on Friday ; but, as we are obliged to pur- 
chase a carriage, and many other matters to do. Master Joha 
thinks we cannot go until the Tuesday after. In the mean 
time, I shall visit the curiosities of the city ; not feeling 
twenty years younger, as my best friend says he does, but 
feeling myself exceedingly matronly with a grown up son 
on one hand and daughter upon the other, and, were I not 
their mother, I would say a likelier pair you will seldom see 
in a summer's day. You must supply words where you find 
them wanting, and imagine what I have left unfinished, for 
my letter is swelled to such a bulk that I have not even time 
to peruse it. Mr. Smith goes to-morrow morning, and 1 must 
now close, requesting you to make the distribution of the 
little matters I send, as directed. Tell Dr. Tufts, my dear 
and valued uncle and friend, that I design to write to him by 
the next vessel. 



186 LETTERS. 

Particularly remember me to uncle Quincy, to Mrs. Quin- 
cy and Nancy, and to all my dear Boston friends. Tell Mr. 
Storer, that Charles is very good to me, and that, walking 
with Abby, the other day, she was taken for his wife. Ask 
him if he consents. Mr. and Mrs. Atkinson treat me like a 
sister. I cannot find myself in a strange land. I shall ex- 
perience this, when I get to a country the language of which 
I cannot speak. I sincerely wish the treaty might have been 
concerted here. I have a partiality for this country ; but 
where my treasure is, there shall my heart go. 

I know not when to close ; you must write often to me, 
and get uncle Smith to cover to Mr. Atkinson ; then, wher- 
ever I am, the letters will come safe. 

Adieu, once more, my dear sister, and believe me 
Most affectionately yours. 

A. A. 



TO BUSS E. CRANCH. 

London, 1 August, 1784. 

MY DEAR BETSEY, 

Enclosed is a tasty ribbon for you. I do not mean to for- 
get my other dear cousin, but could not light upon one that 
altogether pleased me at the time. Your cousin John ar- 
rived here yesterday from the Hague, to my no small joy, I 
assure you ; there is in his manners, behavior, and counte- 
nance, a strong resemblance to his papa. He is the same 
good-humored lad he formerly was ; I look upon him, 
scarcely realizing that he belongs to me ; yet I should 
be very loth any one else should lay claim to him. I hope 
the two dear boys whom I left behind will be equally com- 
forts and blessings to their parents. Will you, my good girl, 
give them, from time to time, your sisterly advice and 
warning ? In this way you can repay all the little services it 
was ever in my power to render you. Next to my own 
children are those of my dear sister's in my affection and 



LETTERS. 187 

regard ; the personal merit of those who have arrived to 
years of maturity, needs not the ties of consanguinity to 
endear them to me. 

Your cousin has written to you largely, I believe, for her 
pen has been employed ever since we left home, when she 
was able, on board ship, and when she could catch a mo- 
ment's time, at home. Were you here I would introduce 
you to some very agreeable company, in particular to a 
Mr. Murray, a friend of your cousin John's, who is a stu- 
dent in the Temple, an American, who bears a very good 
character, is a young gentleman of polite manners, easy 
address, and real good sense, very chatty and sentimental, 
writes handsomely, and is really an accomplished youth. 
There are very few American ladies here, but gentlemen 
by the dozens ; and not a day passes but we have our share 
of them. As you know I am fond of sociability, you will 
suppose I do not look forward with the most pleasurable 
ideas, to my visit and residence in a country, the language 
of which I am a stranger to ; this is a real truth. I believe 
England should have been the last country for me to have 
visited, but I cannot be unhappy surrounded by my own 
family ; without it, no country would be pleasing. Some 
sweet delio-htful scenes I have beheld since I came here ; 
the situation of the Foundling Hospital would enchant you, 
Betsey ! I have wished for you, and longed to carry you 
with me to Drapers' Garden ; find these places, if you can 
amongst your pictures ; paint has very little heightened them, 
I assure you. I am going to-day to see Mr. West's paint- 
ings ; he is out of the city, but Mr. Trumbull is a pupil of 
his, and resides with him when in town ; he attends us, ac- 
companied by Master Jack and Charley, who is not the least 
altered ; he does credit to his country, his family, and him- 
self. 

Your cousin received your letter last Thursday, while we 
were at dinner at Mr. Atkinson's. Mr. Elworthy brought 
it, who lives but a little distance from them ; you will re- 
ceive your reward in the pleasure, the painful pleasure, I 
assure you, it gave us. I rose very early this morning, to 



188 LETTERS. 

get an hour or two before breakfast, to write to one or two 
of my friends. I have only my wrappmg gown on, and the 
clock warns me that company, which 1 expect, will be here 
before I am ready. Mr. Murray is to breakfast with us, 
and accompany us, by his desire, on this excursion ; from 
Mr. West's, we are to visit the monuments of kings and 
queens in Westminster Abbey. 

To my Germantown friends remember me ; I design 
writing to them by the next opportunity. Adieu. 

Most affectionately yours, 

Abigail Adams. 



TO MRS CRANCH. 

1 

Auteuil, di.siant from Paris four miles. 
5 September, 1784. 

MY DEAR SISTER, 

It is now the 5th of September, and I have been at this 
place more than a fortnight ; but I have had so many mat- 
ters to arrange, and so much to attend to, since I left Lon- 
don, that I have scarcely touched a pen. I am now vastly 
behindhand in many things which I could have wished to 
have written down and transmitted to my American friends, 
some of which would have amused, and others diverted 
them. But such a rapid succession of events, or rather oc- 
currences, have been crowded into the last two months of 
my life, that I can scarcely recollect them, much less re- 
count them in detail. There are so many of my friends, 
who have demands upon me, and who I fear will think me 
negligent, that I know not which to address first. Abby 
has had less care upon her, and therefore has been very at- 
tentive to her pen, and I hope will supply my deficiencies. 

Auteuil is a village four miles distant from Paris, and 
one from Passy. The house we have taken is large, com- 
modious, and agreeably situated, near the woods of Bou- 
logne, which belong to the King, and which Mr. Adams 



LETTERS. 1 89 

calls his park, for he walks an hour or two every day in 
them. The house is much larger than we have need of; 
upon occasion, forty beds may be made in it. I fancy it 
must be very cold in winter. There are few houses with 
the privilege which this enjoys, that of having the saloon, 
as it is called, the apartment where we receive company, 
upon the first floor. This room is very elegant, and about a 
third laro;er than General Warren's hall. The dining-room 
is upon the right hand, and the saloon upon the left, of the 
entry, which has large glass doors opposite to each other, 
one opening into the court, as they call it, the other into a 
large and beautiful garden. Out of the dining-room you 
pass through an entry into the kitchen, which is rather small 
for so large a house. In this entry are stairs which you 
ascend, at the top of which is a long gallery frontmg the 
street, with six windows, and, opposite to each window, you 
open into the chambers which all look into the garden. 

But with an expense of thirty thousand livres in looking- 
glasses, there is no table in the house better than an oak 
board, nor a carpet belonging to the house. The floors I 
abhor, made of red tiles in the shape of Mrs. Quincy's floor- 
cloth tiles. These floors will by no means bear water, so 
that the method of cleaning them is to have them waxed, 
and then a man-servant whh foot brushes drives round your 
room dancing here and there like a Merry Andrew. This 
is calculated to take from your foot every atom of dirt, and 
leave the room in a few moments as he found it. The 
house must be exceedingly cold in winter. The dining- 
rooms, of which you make no other use, are laid \vith small 
stones, like the red tiles for shape and size. The servants' 
apartments are generally upon the first floor, and the stairs 
which you commonly have to ascend to get into the family 
apartments are so dirty, that I have been obliged to hold up 
my clothes, as though I was passing through a cow-yard. 

I have been but little abroad. It is customary in this 
country for strangers to make the first visit. As I cannot 
speak the language, I think I should make rather an awk- 
ward figure. I have dined abroad several times with Mr. 



190 LETTERS. ^ 

Adams's particular friends, the Abbes, who are very polite 
and civil, three sensible and worthy men. The Abbe de 
Mably has lately published a book, which he has dedicated 
to Mr. Adams. This gentleman is nearly eighty years old ; 
the Abbe Chalut, seventy-five ; and Arnoux, about fifty, a 
fine, sprightly man, who takes great pleasure in obliging 
his friends. Their apartments were really nice. I have 
dined once at Dr. Franklin's, and once at Mr. Barclay's, 
our consul, who has a very agreeable woman for his wife, 
and where I feel like being with a friend. Mrs. Barclay 
has assisted me in my purchases, gone with me to different 
shops, &c. To-morrow I am to dine at Monsieur Grand's ; 
but I have really felt so happy within doors, and am so 
pleasingly situated, that I have had little inclination to 
change the scene. I have not been to one public amuse- 
ment as yet, not even the opera, though we have one very 
near us. 

You may easily suppose I have been fully employed, 
beginning house-keeping anew, and arranging my family to 
our no small expense and trouble ; for I have had bed-linen 
and table-linen to purchase and make, spoons and forks to 
get made of silver, three dozen of each, besides tea furni- 
ture, china for the table, servants to procure, &c. The^ 
expense of living abroad, I always supposed to be high, but 
my ideas were nowise adequate to the thing. I could have 
furnished myself in the town of Boston, with every thing I 
have, twenty or thirty per cent, cheaper than I have been 
able to do it here. Every thing which will bear the name 
of elegant, is imported from England, and, if you will have 
it, you must pay for it, duties and all. I cannot get a dozen 
handsome wine-glasses under three guineas, nor a pair of 
small decanters for less than a guinea and a half. The 
only gauze fit to wear is English, at a crown a yard ; so 
that really a guinea goes no further than a copper with us. 
For this house, garden, stables, &c., we give two hundred 
guineas a year. Wood is two guineas and a half per cord ; 
coal, six Jivres the basket of about two bushels ; this article 
of firing, we calculate at one hundred guineas a year. The 



LETTERS. 191 

difference between coming upon this negotiation to France 
and remaining at the Hague, where the house was already- 
furnished at the expense of a thousand pounds sterling, will 
increase the expense here to six or seven hundred guineas ; 
at a time, too, when Congress have cut off five hundred 
guineas from what they have heretofore given. For our 
coachman and horses alone, (Mr. Adams purchased a coach 
in England,) we give fifteen guineas a month. It is the 
policy of this country to oblige you to a certain number of 
servants, {tnd one will not touch what belongs to the busi- 
ness of another, though he or she has time enough to per- 
form the whole. In the first place, there is a coachman 
who does not an individual thing but attend to the carriages 
and horses; then the gardener, who has business enough; 
then comes the cook ; then the 7naitre dlwtel ; his business 
is to purchase articles in the family, and oversee, that no- 
body cheats but himself; a valet de chamhre^ — John serves 
in this capacity ; a feinme de chamhre^ — Esther serves in 
this line, and is worth a dozen others; a coiffeuse, — for 
this place, I have a French girl about nineteen, whom I 
have been upon the point of turning away, because Madame 
will not brush a chamber ; " it is not de fashion, it is not 
her business." I would not have kept her a day longer, 
but found, upon inquiry, that I could not better myself, and 
hair-dressing here is very expensive, unless you keep such 
a madam in the house. She sews tolerably well, so I make 
her as useful as I can. She is more particularly devoted to 
Mademoiselle. Esther diverted me yesterday evening, by 
telling me that she heard her go muttering by her chamber 
door after she had been assisting Abby in dressing. " Ah, 
mon Dieu, 't is provoking," — (she talks a little English.) 
— " Why, what is the matter, Pauline, what is provoking.^" 
— " Why, Mademoiselle look so pretty, I, so mauvais." 
There is another indispensable servant, who is called a 
frotteur ; his business is to rub the floors. 

We have a servant who acts as maitre d''h6tel, whom I 
like at present, and who is so very gracious as to act as 
footman too, to save the expense of another servant, upon 



192 LETTERS. 

condition that we give him a gentleman's suit of clothes in 
lieu of a livery. Thus, with seven servants and hiring a 
charwoman upon occasion of company, we may possibly 
make out to keep house ; vvhh less, we should be hooted at 
as ridiculous, and could not entertain any company. To 
tell this in our own country, would be considered as extrav- 
agance ; but would they send a person here in a public 
character to be a public jest ? At lodgings in Paris last 
year, during Mr. Adams's negotiation for a peace, it was as 
expensive to him as -it is now at house-keeping, without half 
the accommodations. 

Washing is another expensive article ; the servants are 
all allowed theirs, besides their wages; our own costs us a 
guinea a week. I have become steward and book-keeper, 
determined to know with accuracy what our expenses are, 
and to prevail with Mr. Adams to return to America, if he 
finds himself straitened, as I think he must be. Mr. Jay 
went home because he could not support his family here 
with the whole salary ; what then can be done, curtailed as 
it now is, with the additional expense ? Mr. Adams is de- 
termined to keep as little company as he possibly can, but 
some entertainments we must make, and it is no unusual 
thing for them to amount to fifty or sixty guineas at a time. 
More is to be performed by way of negotiation, many times, 
at one of these entertainments, than at twenty serious con- 
versations ; but the policy of our country has been, and 
still is, to be penny-wise and pound-foolish. We stand in 
sufficient need of economy, and, in the curtailment of other 
salaries, I suppose they thought it absolutely necessary to 
cut off their foreign ministers. But, my own interest apart, 
the system is bad; for that nation which degrades their own 
ministers by obliging them to live in narrow circumstances, 
cannot expect to be held in high estimation themselves. 
"We spend no evenings abroad, make no suppers, attend 
very few public entertainments, or spectacles, as they are 
called, and avoid every expense that is not held indispens- 
able. Yet I cannot but think it hard, that a gentleman who 
has devoted so great a part of his life to the service of the 



LETTERS. 193 

public, who has been the means, in a great measure, of 
procuring such extensive territories to his country, who 
saved their fisheries, and who is still laboring to procure 
them further advantages, should find it necessary so cau- 
tiously to calculate his pence, for fear of overrunning them. 
I will add one more expense. There is now a Court mourn- 
ing, and every foreign minister, with his family, must go 
into mourning for a Prince of eight years old, whose father 
is an ally to the King of France. This mourning is ordered 
by the Court, and is to be worn eleven days only. Poor 
Mr. Jefferson had to hie away for a tailor to get a whole 
black silk suit made up in two days ; and at the end of 
eleven days, should another death happen, he will be 
obliged to have a new suit of mourning, of cloth, because 
; that is the season when silk must be left off. We may 

•groan and scold, but these are expenses which cannot be 
avoided ; for fashion is the deity every one worships in this 
country, and, from the highest to the lowest, you must sub- 
mit. Even poor John and Esther had no comfort amongst 
the servants, being constantly the subjects of their ridicule, 
until we were obliged to direct them to have their hair 
dressed. Esther had several crying fits upon the occasion, 

, that she should be forced to be so much of a fool ; but there 
was no way to. keep them ftom being trampled upon but 
this ; and, now that they are a la mode de Paris ^ they are 
much respected. To be out of fashion is more criminal 
than to be seen in a state of nature, ta which the Parisians 
are not averse. 

Sunday here bears the nearest resemblance to our Com- 
mencement, and Election days ; every thing is jollity, and 
mirth, and recreation. But, to quit these subjects, pray tell 
me how you all do. I long to hear from you. House and 
garden, with all its decorations, are not so dear to me as my 
own little cottage, connected with the society I used there to 
enjoy ; for, out of my own family, I have no attachments in 
Europe, nor do I think I ever shall have. As to the language, 
I speak it a little, bad grammar and all ; but I have so many 
French servants, that I am under a necessity of trying. 

13 



194 LETTERS. 

Could you, my sister, and my dear cousins, come and see 
me as you used to do, walk in the garden and delight your- 
selves in the alcoves and arbours, I should enjoy myself much 
better. When Mr. Adams is absent, I sit in my little vi^riting 
room, or the chamber I have described to Betsey, and read 
or sew. Abby is forever at her pen, writing or learning 
French ; sometimes company, and sometimes abroad, we are 
fully employed. 

Who do you think dined with us the other day ? A Mr. 
Mather and his lady, son of Dr. Mather, and Mrs. Hay, who 
have come to spend the winter in France. I regret that they 
are going to some of the provinces. To-day, Mr. Tracy, 
Mr. Williams, Mr. Jefferson, and Colonel Humphreys are to 
dine with us ; and one day last week we had a company of 
twenty-seven persons; Dr. Franklin, Mr. Hartley and his 
secretaries, &c. &lc. But my paper warns me to close. 
Do not let anybody complain of me. I am going on writing 
to one after another as fast as possible, and, if this vessel 
does not carry the letters, the next will. Give my love to 
one of the best men in the world. 

Affectionately yours, 

A. A. 



TO MISS E. CRANCH. 



Auteuil, Sept. 5, 17S4. 

MY DEAR BETSEY, 

I AM situated at a small desk in an apartment about two 4 
thirds as large as your own little chamber ; this apartment 
opens into my lodging chamber, which is handsome and 
commodious, and is upon a range with six or seven others, 
all of which look into the garden. My chamber is hung 
with a rich India patch, the bed, chairs and window cur- 
tains of the same, which is very fashionable in this country. 
Two handsome bureaus with marble tops make up the fur- 
niture, which wants only the addition of a carpet to give it 
all an air of elegance ; but in lieu of this is a tile floor in 



LETTERS. 195 

the shape of Mrs. Quincy's carpet, with the red much wora 
off and defaced, the dust of which you may suppose not 
very favorable to a long train ; but since I came we have 
been at the expense of having several of the floors new 
painted ; this is done with Spanish-brown and glue, after- 
wards with melted wax and then rubbed with a hard brush, 
upon which a man sets his foot and with his arms akimbo, 
stripped to his shirt, goes driving round your room. This 
man is called a frotteur, and is a servant kept on purpose 
for the business. There are some floors of wood which re- 
semble our black walnut ; these are made of small strips of ' 
wood about six inches wide, and placed in squares, which 
are rubbed with wax and brushes in the same manner I 
have before described. Water is an article very sparingly 
used. I procured a woman when I first came, (for the house 
was excessively dirty) to assist Esther in cleaning. I de- 
sired her to wash up the dining-room floor, which is of stone 
made in the same shape of the tile, so she turned a pail of 
water down and took a house brush and swept it out. You 
would think yourself poisoned until time reconciled you to 
it. I have, however, got this place to look more like neat- 
ness than any thing I have yet seen. What a contrast this 
to the Hague ! The garden, Betsey ! let me take a look at 
it ; it is delightful, such a beautiful collection of flowers all 
in bloom, so sweetly arranged with rows of orange-trees 
and china vases of flowers ; why you would be in raptures ! 
It is square and contains about five acres of land. About 
a third of the garden is laid out in oblongs, octagons, cir- 
cles, &c., filled with flowers; upon each side are spacious 
walks, with rows of orange trees and pots of flowers, then 
a small walk and a wall covered with grape vines ; in the 
middle of the garden a fountain of water, in a circle walled 
about two feet, and a thin circle of fence painted green, in 
the midst of which are two little images carved in stone ; 
upon each side and at a proper distance are two small 
alcoves filled with curious plants, exotics, and around these 
are placed pots of flowers, which have a most agreeable 
appearance ; then a small open Chinese fence, covered with 



s 



196 LETTERS. 

grape vines and wall fruit, encloses two spots upon each 
side, containing vegetables surrounded by orange trees 
which prevent your view of them until you walk to them. 
At the bottom of the garden are a number of trees, the 
branches of which unite and form beautiful arbours : the 
tops of the trees are cut all even enough to walk upon them, 
and look, as I sit now at the window, like one continued tree 
through the whole range. There is a little summer-house 
covered by this thicket, beautiful in ruins ; two large alcoves, 
in which are two statues, terminate the vines ; the windows 
of all the apartments in the house, or rather glass doors, 
reaching from the top to the bottom and opening in the 
middle, give one a full and extensive view of the garden. 
This is a beautiful climate, soft, serene, and temperate ; but 
Paris, you must not ask me how I like it, because I am 
going to tell you of the pretty little apartment next to this 
^Vi^ in which I am writing. Why, my dear, you cannot turn 
O . yourself in it without being multiplied twenty times ; now 
J that I do not like, for being rather clumsy, and by no means 
an elegant figure, I hate to have it so often repeated to me. 
This room is about ten or twelve feet large, is eight-cornered 
and panelled with looking-glasses ; a red and white India 
patch, with pretty borders encompasses it ; low back stuffed 
chairs with garlands of flowers encircling them, adorn this 
little chamber ; festoons of flowers are round all the glasses; 
a lustre hangs from the ceiling adorned with flowers ; a 
beautiful sofa is placed in a kind of alcove, with pillows and 
cushions in abundance, the use of which I have not yet in- 
vestigated ; in the top of this alcove, over the sofa in the 
ceiling is another glass ; here is a beautiful chimney-piece, 
with an elegant painting of rural life in a country farm-house, 
lads and lasses jovial and happy. This little apartment 
opens into your cousin's bed-chamber ; it has a most pleas- 
ing view of the garden, and it is that view which always 
brings my dear Betsey to my mind, and makes me long for 
her to enjoy the delights of it with me. In this apartment 
I sit and sew, while your uncle is engaged at Passy, where 
the present negotiations are carried on, and your cousin 



LETTERS. 197 

John in his apartment translating Latin, your cousin Abby 
in her chamber writing, in which she employs most of her 
time. She has been twice to the Opera with her brother, of 
which, I suppose, she will write you an account. The pres- 
ent owner of this house, and the builder of it, is a M. le 
Comte de Rouhaut ; he married young, a widow worth 
1,800,000 livres per annum, =£80,000 sterling, which in the 
course of a few years they so effectually dissipated, that 
they had not <£ 100,000 sterling remaining ; they have been 
since that separated ; by some inheritances and legacies the 
Count is now worth about a hundred thousand livres per 
annum, and the Countess seventy-five thousand. They have 
a theatre in this house now gone to decay, where for eight 
years together they played comedies and tragedies, twice a 
week, and gave entertainments at the same time, which cost 
them c£200 sterling every time they entertained between 
four and five hundred persons at a time. The looking- 
glasses in this house, I have been informed, cost 300,000 
livres. Under this chamber which I have described to you, 
is a room of the same bigness, in which is an elegant bath- 
ing convenience let into the floor, and this room is encom- 
passed with more glass than the chamber, the ceiling being 
entirely of glass ; here, too, is a sofa surrounded with cur- 
tains. Luxury and folly are strong, and characteristic traits 
of the builder. There are apartments of every kind in this 
house, many of which I have never yet entered ; those for 
which I have a use are calculated for the ordinary purposes 
of life, and further I seek not to know. 

Write to me, my dear girl, and tell me every thing about 
my dear friends and country. Remember me to your 
brother, to your sister. I will write to Mr. T. I hope to 
be able to send at least a few lines. It is very expensive 
sending letters by the post. I must look for private oppor- 
tunities to London. Adieu. I hear the carriage. Your 
uncle is come. I go to hasten tea, of which he is still fond. 

Yours sincerely, 

A. A. 



• 

198 LETTERS. 



TO MISS LUCY CRANCH. 

Auteuil, 5 September. 1784. 

MY DEAS LUCY, 

1 PROMISED to write to you from the Hague, but your uncle's 
unexpected arrival at London prevented me. Your uncle 
purchased an excellent travelling coach in London, and 
hired a post-chaise for our servants. In this manner we 
travelled from London to Dover, accommodated through 
England with the best of horses, postilions, and good car- 
riages ; clean, neat apartments, genteel entertainment, and 
prompt attendance. But no sooner do you cross from Dover 
to Calais, than every thing is reversed, and yet the distance 
is very small between them. 

The cultivation is by no means equal to that of England ; 
the villages look poor and mean, the houses all thatched, 
and rarely a glass window in them ; their horses, instead of 
being handsomely harnessed, as those in England are-, have 
the appearance of so many old cart-horses. Along you go, 
with seven horses tied up with ropes and chains, rattling like 
trucks; two ragged postilions, mounted, with enormous jack 
boots, add to the comic scene. And this is the style in which 
a duke or a count travels through this kingdom. You in- 
quire of me how I like Paris. Why, they tell me I am no 
judge, for that I have not seen it yet. One thing, I know, 
and that is that I have smelt it. If I was agreeably disap- 
pointed in London, I am as much disappointed in Paris. It 
is the very dirtiest place I oversaw. There are some build- 
ings and some squares, which are tolerable ; but in general 
the streets are narrow, the shops, the houses, inelegant and 
dirty, the streets full of lumber and stone, with which they 
build. Boston cannot boast so elegant public buildings ; but, 
in every other respect, it is as much superior in my eyes to 
Paris, as London is to Boston. To have had Paris tolerable 
to me, I should not have gone to London. As to the people 
here, they are more given to hospitality than in England it 



LETTERS. 199 

is said. I have been in company with but one French lady 
since I arrived ; for strangers here make the first visit, and 
nobody will know you until you have waited upon them in 
form. 

This lady^ I dined with at Dr. Franklin's. She entered 
the room with a careless, jaunty air ; upon seeing ladies 
who were strangers to her, she bawled out, " Ah ! moni 
Dieu, where is Franklin ? Why did you not tell me there 
were ladies here .'* " You must suppose her speaking all 
this in French. " How I look ! " said she, taking hold of a 
chemise made of tiffany, which she had on over a blue lute- 
string, and which looked as much upon the decay as her 
beauty, for she was once a handsome woman ; her hair; 
was frizzled ; over it she had a small straw hat, with a dirty 
gauze half-handkerchief round it, and a bit of dirtier gauze, 
than ever my maids wore, was bowed on behind. She had 
a black gauze scarf thrown over her shoulders. She ran 
out of the room ; when she returned, the Doctor entered at 
one door, she at the other ; upon which she ran forward to 
him, caught him by the hand, " Helas ! Franklin ;" thenj 
gave him a double kiss, one upon each cheek, and another 
upon his forehead. When we went into the room to dine, 
she was placed between the Doctor and Mr. Adams. She 
carried on the chief of the conversation at dinner, fre- 
quently locking her hand into the Doctor's, and sometimes j 
spreading her arms upon the backs of both the gentlemen's ' 
chairs, then throwing her arm carelessly upon the Doctor's 1^ 
neck. 

I should have been greatly astonished at this conduct, if 
the good Doctor had not told me that in this lady I should 
see a genuine Frenchwoman, wholly free from affectation 
or stiffness of behaviour, and one of the best women in the 
world. For this I must take the Doctor's word; but I 
should have set her down for a very bad one, although sixty 
years of age, and a widow. I own I was highly disgusted, 

^ This ladv was Madame Helvetius, widow of the philosopher who had 
resided at Auteuil. See Mr. Sparks's ediliou of Franklin's Works, vol. x. 
p. 317. 



200 LETTERS. 

and never wish for an acquaintance with any ladies of this 
cast. After dinner she threw herself upon a settee, where 
she showed more than her feet. She had a little lap-dog,* 
who was, next to the Doctor, her favorite. This she kissed, 
and when he wet the floor, she wiped it up with her chemise. 
This is one of the Doctor's most intimate friends, with 
whom he dines once every week, and she with him. She 
is rich, and is my near neighbour ; but I have not yet 
visited her. Thus you see, my dear, that manners differ 
exceedingly in different countries. I hope, however, to 
find amongst the French ladies manners more consistent 
with my ideas of decency, or I shall be a mere recluse. 

You must write to me, and let me know all about you ; 
marriages, births, and preferments ; every thing you can 
think of. Give my respects to the Germantown family. I 
shall begin to get letters for them by the next vessel. 

Good night. Believe me 

Your most affectionate aunt, 

A. A. 



TO MRS. WARREN. 

Auteuil, near Paris, 5 September, 1784. 

Although I have not yet written to you, be assured. Madam, 
you have been the subject of some of my most pleasing 
thoughts. The sweet communion we have often had 
together, and the pleasant hours 1 have passed both at Mil- 
ton and Braintree, I have not realized in Europe. I visit 
and am visited, but not being able to converse in the lan- 
guage of the country, I can only silently observe manners 
and men. I have been here so little while, that it would be 
improper for me to pass sentence or form judgments of a 
people from a converse of so short duration. This I may, 
however, say with truth, that their manners are totally dif- 

1 Franklin's Works, edited by Mi\ Sparlcs, vol. ii. 213. 



LETTERS. 201 

ferent from those of our own country. If you ask me what 
is the business of life here ? I answer, pleasure. The beau 
monde, you reply. Ay, Madam, from the throne to the 
footstool it is the science of every being in Paris and its 
environs. It is a matter of great speculation to me when 
these people labor. I am persuaded the greater part of 
those who crowd the streets, the public walks, the theatres, 
the spectacles, as they term them, must subsist upon bread 
and water. In London the streets are also full of people, 
but their dress, their gait, every appearance indicates busi- 
ness, except on Sundays, when every person devotes the 
day, either at church or in walking, as is most agreeable to 
his fancy. But here, from the gaiety of the dress and the 
places they frequent, I judge pleasure is the business of life. 
We have no days with us, or rather in our country, by 
which I can give you an idea of the Sabbath here, except 
commencement and election. Paris upon that day pours 
forth all her citizens into the environs for the purposes of 
recreation. We have a beautiful wood cut into walks 
within a few rods of our dwelling, which, upon this day, 
resounds with music and dancing, jollity and mirth of every 
kind. In this wood booths are erected, where cake, fruit, 
and wine are sold. Here milliners repair with their gauzes, 
ribbons, and many other articles, in the peddling style, but 
for other purposes I imagine than the mere sale of their 
merchandise. But every thing here is a subject of mer- 
chandise. 

I believe this nation is the only one in the world which 
could make pleasure the business of life, and yet retain such 
a relish for it as never to complain of its being tasteless or 
insipid ; the Parisians seem to have exhausted nature and 
art in this science, and to be " triste " is a complaint of a 
most serious nature. In the family of Monsieur Grand, who 
is a Protestant, I have seen a decorum and decency of 
manners, a conjugal and family affection, which are rarely 
found, where separate apartments, separate pleasures and 
amusements show the world that nothing but the name is 
united. But whilst absolutions are held in estimation, and 



202 LETTERS. 

pleasure can be bought and sold, what restraint have man- 
kind upon their appetites and passions? There are few 
of them left in a neighboring country amongst the beau 
monde, even where dispensations are not practised. Which 
of the two countries can you form the most favorable opin- 
ion of, and which is the least pernicious to the morals ? 
That where vice is licensed ; or where it is suffered to walk 
at large, soliciting the unwary and unguarded, as it is to a 
most astonishing height in the streets of London, and where 
virtuous females are frequently subject to insults. In Paris 
no such thing happens ; but the greatest decency and re- 
spect is shown by all orders to the female character. The 
stage is in London made use of as a vehicle to corrupt the 
morals. In Paris no such thing is permitted. They are 
too polite to wound the ear. In one country vice is like a 
ferocious beast, seeking whom it may devour ; in the other 
like a subtle poison, secretly penetrating and working de- 
struction. In one country, you cannot travel a mile without 
danger to your person and property, yet public executions 
abound ; in the other, your person and property are safe ; 
executions are very rare, but in a lawful way, hewai^e ; for 
with whomsoever you have to deal, you may rely upon an 
attempt to overreach you. In the graces of motion and 
action this people shine unrivalled. The theatres exhibit to 
me the most pleasing amusement I have yet found. The 
little knowledge I have of the language enables me to judge 
here, and the actions, to quote an old phrase, speak louder 
than words. I was the other evening at what is called the 
French Theatre (to distinguish it from several others,) it 
being the only one upon which tragedies are acted. Here 
I saw a piece of the celebrated Racine, a sacred drama, 
called Athalia. The dresses were superb, the house elegant 
and beautiful, the actors beyond the reach of my pen. The 
character of the high priest admirably well supported ; and 
Athalia would have shone as Sophonisba or Lady Macbeth, 
if the term shine may be applied to a character full of cru- 
elty and horror. To these public spectacles (and to every 
other amusement) you may go with perfect security to your 



LETTERS. 203 

person and property. Decency and good order are pre- 
served, yet are they equally crowded with those of London ; 
but in London, at going in and coming out of the theatre, 
you find yourself in a mob, and are every moment in dan- 
ger of being robbed. In short, the term John Bull, which 
Swift formerly gave to the English nation, is still very appli- 
cable to their manners. The cleanliness of Britain, joined 
to the civility and politeness of France, could make a most 
agreeable assemblage. You will smile at my choice, but 
as I am likely to reside some time in this country, why 
should I not wish them the article in which they are most 
deficient ? 

It is the established custom of this country for strangers 
to make the first visit. Not speaking the language lays me 
under embarrassments. For to visit a lady merely to bow 
to her is painful, especially where they are so fond of con- 
versing as the ladies here generally are ; so that my female 
acquaintance is rather confined as yet, and my residence 
four miles from Paris will make it still more so. There are 
four American ladies who have visited me, — Mrs, Barclay, 
with whom 1 have a friendship, and whom I can call upon 
at all times without ceremony, and who is an excellent 
lady; a Mrs. Price, a Canadian lady; Mrs. Valnais, and 
Mrs. Bingham. Mrs. Bingham is a very young lady, not 
more than twenty, very agreeable, and very handsome ; 
rather too much given to the foibles of the country for 
the mother of two children, which she already is. 

As to politics, madam, the world is at peace, and I have 
wholly clone with them. Your good husband and mine 
would speculate upon treaties of commerce, could they 
spend their evenings together, as I sincerely wish they could, 
or upon what they love better, agriculture and husbandry, 
which is become full as necessary for our country. This 
same surly John Bull is kicking up the dust and growling, 
looking upon the fat pastures he has lost, with a malicious 
and envious eye ; and though he is offered admission upon 
decent terms, he is so mortified and stomachful, that, 
although he longs for a morsel, he has not yet agreed for a 
single bite. 



204 LETTERS. 

This village of Auteuil, where we reside, is four miles 
from Paris, and one from Passy ; — a very pretty summer 
retreat, but not so well calculated for winter. I fear it will 
prove as cold as Milton Hill. If I was to judge of the win- 
ters here by what I have experienced of the fall, I should 
think they were equally severe as with us. We begin 
already to find fires necessary. 

During the little time I was in England, I saw more of 
the curiosities of London than I have yet seen of Paris ; so 
that I am not able to give you any account of any public 
buildings or amusements, except the theatres, of which I 
shall grow very fond as soon as I am mistress enough of the 
language to comprehend all the beauties of it. There are 
three theatres in Paris constantly open, but that upon which 
tragedies are acted is the most pleasing to me. Corneille, 
Racine, Crebillon, and Moliere are very frequently given here ; 
upon the stage the best pronunciation is to be acquired. There 
is a Mrs. Siddons in London, who is said to be the female 
Garrick of the present day. I had not the happiness to see 
her when I was in London, as she was then in Ireland ; but 
I saw no actors upon their stage which by any means equal 
those which I have met with here. The people of this 
country keep up their intercourse with each other by dining 
together, after which they repair to the theatres and to the 
public walks. 

I sigh (though not allowed) for my social tea parties 
which I left in America, and the friendship of my chosen 
few. Their agreeable converse would be a rich repast to 
me, could I transplant them round me in the village of Au- 
teuil, with my habits, tastes, and sentiments, which are too 
firmly riveted to change with change of country or climate ; 
and at my age, the greatest of my enjoyments consists in 
the reciprocation of friendship. 

How is my good friend Charles ? finely recovered, I 
hope. I do not despair of seeing him here ; and at this house 
he may be assured of a welcome, whenever he wishes to try 
the air of France. Gay Harry, has he got any more flesh 
and health ? Grave Mr. George is well, I hope, and fixed 



LETTERS. 205 

in some business to his mind. Let not ray esteemed friend, 
the eldest of the brothers, think I have forgotten or neglected 
him by naming him last. His tenderness for his brothers, 
and his better health, will excuse me if I have been guilty 
of a breach of order. He will accept my good wishes for 
his health and prosperity without regard to place. Shall I 
ask General Warren how farming and husbandry flourish.'* 
I thought often of him, and the delight he would have 
received in a journey from Deal to London. The rich vari- 
ety of grass and grain with which that country was loaded, 
as I rode through it, exhibited a prospect of the highest cul- 
tivation. All nature looked like a garden. The villages 
around Paris are pleasant, but neither the land nor the cul- 
tivation equals the neighboring nation. 

When you see our good friend Madam VVinthrop, be 
pleased to make my regards to her. You will also remem- 
ber me to your neighbors at the foot of the hill ; and let me 
hear from you by every opportunity, as the correspondence 
of my friends is the only compensation I am to receive for 
the loss of their society. Is Polly married ? Happiness 
attend her and her partner if she is. To Mr. and Mrs. Otis, 
to one and all of my dear friends, be kind enough to remem- 
ber me. The truth of one maxim of Rochefoucault I expe- 
rience, that absence heightens, rather than diminishes, those 
affections which are strong and sincere. 

12 December. 

You will see, my dear Madam, by the date of the above, 
that my letter has lain by long, waiting a private convey- 
ance. Mr. Tracy and Mr. Jackson design to return to 
London this week, and I shall request the favor of them to 
take charge of it. Since it was written there have been 
some changes in the political world, and the emperor has 
recalled his ambassador from the United Provinces. Every 
thing seems to wear a hostile appearance. The Dutch are 
not in the least intimidated, but are determined at all events 
to refuse the opening of the Scheldt to the emperor. This 
court is endeavoring to mediate between the emperor and 



206 LETTERS. 

the Dutch. When the affair was to be debated in the king's 
council, the queen said to the Count de Vergennes, " M. le 
Comte, you must remember that the emperor is my brother." 
" I certainly shall, Madam," replied the Count ; " but your 
majesty will remember that you are queen of France." 

Thus much for Politics. You ask about treaties of Com- 
merce. Courts like ladies stand upon punctilios and choose 
to be addressed upon their own ground. I am not at liberty 
to say more. 

This is the 12th of December and we have got an Ameri- 
can snow storm ; the climate is not so pleasant as I expected 
to find it. I love the cheerful sunshine of America and the 
clear blue sky. Adieu, my dear Madam, I have so much 
wrhing to do that I am. though unwillingly, obliged to close, 
requesting my son to copy for me. You will not fail writing 
soon to your friend and humble servant. 



TO MISS E. CRANCH. 

Auteuil, 3 December, 1784. 

MY DEAR BETSEY, 

I HAD, my dear girl, such an obliging visit from you last 
night, and such sweet communion with you that it has really 
overcome the reluctance which I have for my pen, and in- 
duced me to take it up, to tell you that my night was more 
to my taste than the day, although that was spent in the 
company of Ambassadors, Barons, &c., and was one of the 
most agreeable parties we have yet entertained. I do not 
recollect that I once mentioned to you, during all your visit, 
the company of the day, nor any thing respecting the customs 
and habits of the country where I reside. I was wholly 
wrapt up in inquiries after those friends who are much dear- 
er to me, and who are bound faster to my heart, I think, for 
being separated from them. And now my dear girl I have 
told you a truth respecting the pleasure your company afford- 



LETTERS. 207 

ed me, and the pleasing account you gave me, of our own 
dear friends and country. I suppose your curiosity is a little 
raised with respect to the company I mentioned. I could 
write you an account every week of what I dare say would 
amuse you, but I fear to take my pen, lest I should give it a 
scope that would be very improper for the public character 
with whom I am connected, and the country where I reside. 
It is necessary in this country for a gentleman in a public 
character to entertain company once a week, and to have a 
feast in the style of the country. As your uncle had been 
invited to dine at the tables of many of the Foreign Mmis- 
ters who reside here, it became necessary to return the ci- 
vility, by at least giving them as good dinners ; though it 
would take two years of an American Minister's salary to 
furnish the equipage of plate which you will find upon the 
tables of all the foreign Ministers here. M. I'Ambassadeur 
de Suede, was invited together with Mr. D'Asp, the Secretary 
of Legation, the Baron de Geer and the Baron de Walters- 
dorff, two very agreeable young noblemen who speak Eng- 
lish. The Swedish Ambassador is a well made, genteel man, 
very polite and affiable, about thirty years old. Mr. Jefferson 
and Dr. Franklin were both invited, but were too sick to 
come out. .Colonel Humphreys, Secretary to the American 
embassy, and Mr. Short, private Secretary to Mr. JefTerson, 
Mr. Jackson and Mr. Tracy, Mr. and Mrs. Bingham and Dr. 
Bancroft, and Chevalier Jones, made up the company. Col- 
onel Humphreys is from Connecticut, a dark complexioned, 
stout, well-made, warlike looking gentleman of about thirty 
years old ; you may read in his face industry, probity and good 
sense. Mr. Short is a younger man ; he is but just arrived 
from Virginia ; appears to be modest and soft in his manners. 
Mr. Jackson and Mr. Tracy you know. Dr. Bancroft is a 
native of America ; he may be thirty or forty years old. 
His first appearance is not agreeable, but he has a smile 
which is of vast advantage to his features, enlightening them 
and dispelling the scowl which appears upon his brow. He 
is pleasant and entertaining in conversation ; a man of liter- 
ature and good sense ; you know he is said to be the author 



208 LETTERS. 

of Charles Wentworth. Chevalier Jones you have heard 
much of; he is a most uncommon character. I dare say 
you would be os much disappointed in him as I was. From 
the intrepid character he justly supported in the American 
Navy, I expected to have seen a rough, stout, warlike Ro- 
man, — instead of that I should sooner think of wrapping him 
up in cotton wool, and putting "him into my pocket, than 
sending him to contend with cannon-balls. He is small of 
stature, well proportioned, soft in his speech, easy in his 
address, polite in his mannerl, vastly civil, understands all 
the etiquette of a lady's toilette, as perfectly as he does the 
mast, sails and rigging of his ship. Under all this appear- 
ance of softness he is bold, enterprising, ambitious and active. 
He has been here often, and dined with us several times ; he 
is said to be a man of gallantry and a favorite amongst the 
French ladies, whom he is frequently commending for the 
neatness of their persons, their easy manners and their taste 
in dress. He knows how often the ladies use the baths, what 
color best suits a lady's complexion, what cosmetics are 
most favorable to the skin. We do not often see the war- 
rior and the Abigail thus united. Mr. and Mrs. Bingham 
bring up the rear, both of whom are natives of America. 
He is about twenty five and she, twenty. He is said to be 
rich and to have an income of four thousand a year. He 
married this lady at sixteen. She is a daughter of Mr. 
Willing, of Philadelphia. They have two little girls now with 
them, and have been travelling in England, Holland and 
France. Here they mean to pass the winter in the gayeties 
and amusements of Paris ; 't is said he wishes for an appoint- 
ment here as foreign Minister ; he lives at a much greater 
expense than any American Minister can afford to do. Mrs. 
Bingham is a fine figure and a beautiful person ; her man- 
ners are easy and affable, but she was too young to come 
abroad without a pilot, gives too much into the follies of this 
country, has money enough and knows how to lavish it with 
an unsparing hand. Less money and more years may make 
her wiser, but she is so handsome she must be pardoned. 
Mr. and Mrs. Church are here too, alias Carter. Mrs. Church 



LETTERS. 209 

is a delicate little woman : as to him, his character is enough 
known in America. 



13 December. 

Since writing the above, I have had the pleasure of 
receiving your obliging letter of 26 September. I believe 
I wrote you a letter of nearly the same date, in which I 
think I must have satisfied some of your particular inqui- 
ries respecting house, gardens and apartments, and if it will 
be any satisfaction to you to know where this letter is 
written, I will tell you, in your cousin John's chamber ; he 
is writing at his desk, and I at a table by the fire. It is 
customary in this country to live upon the second floor ; 
there are a row of chambers the length of the house, which 
all look into the garden. In the first, which makes one 
corner of the house, I am now writing ; it is lined in the 
same manner as if it was paper, with a blue and white 
chintz ; the bed curtains, window curtains, and chairs of the 
same. A marble mantletree, over which is a looking-glass, 
in the fashion of the country, which are all fixed into the 
walls, it is about four feet wide and five long ; then there is 
between the windows a handsome bureau with a marble 
top, the draws gilt, like trimming them with a broad gold 
lace, and another looking-glass like that I have just men- 
tioned. There is a little apartment belonging to this cham- 
ber, about as large as your library, which has a sofa of red 
and white copper-plate and six chairs of the same ; this too 
looks into the garden, and is a pretty summer apartment ; 
between this chamber and the next, is the staircase, upon 
the other side of which is the chamber in which we all 
associate together when we are not in our separate rooms ; 
this is properly your uncle's room, because there he writes 
and receives his forenoon company. This chamber has 
two large glasses and is furnished much in the same style 
with the one I have described, the furniture being red and 
white. Next to that is a chamber called an anti-chamber, 
papered with a blue and white paper, one glass only and 

14 



210 LETTERS. 

one window. Out of this you go into my lodging-chamber, 
which is large and furnished in the same style with the 
others, only that the figures are all Chinese, horrid looking 
creatures ! Out of my chamber, all in the same row, is a 
little room for a dressing-room and one of the same kind 
next to it, which is in warm weather my writing-room, 
having two little book cases and a small escritoire ; next to 
that is the delicious little apartment I formerly told you of, 
and then your cousin Abby's apartment which makes tke 
other corner of the house. There are very clever apart- 
ments, up the second pair of stairs, over these chambers, 
but they are out of repair ; there are two wings in which 
there are a number of chambers ; in one of which Esther 
and Pauline keep, always having a fire to themselves. Who, 
say you, is Pauline ? Why, she is your cousin's chamber- 
maid and our hair-dresser ; every lady here must have a 
female hair-dresser, so these girls serve an apprenticeship 
to the business like any other trade, and give from five to 
eight guineas for their learning, then they are qualified to 
dress a lady, make her bed and sew a very little. I have, 
however, got this one to lay aside some of her airs and 
become a very clever girl. Whilst Esther was sick she was 
as kind to her and as careful as if she was her sister, 
watching with her night after night ; the cook, too, upon 
this occasion was very kind ; and Pauline has undertaken 
to teach Esther to dress hair, which will be a vast advan- 
tage to me, if, as I fear, T shall be obliged to go away this 
winter ; it is very unpleasant to break up a house, to part 
with one's servants, and to set all afloat, not knowing where 
your next residence will be. 

What a letter, this ! I hope it is sufficiently particular to 
satisfy all your curiosity, but do not show it as a specimen 
of Aunt A.'s abilities. Enter Miss Pauline — "Madame, 
vous allez faire mettre des papillottes a vos cheveux av- 
jourd'hui ? II est midi, oui, je viens," — so you see my pen 
must be laid aside for this important business. I commonly 
take a play of Voltaire or some other French book to read, 
or I should have no patience. The business being com- 



LETTERS. 211 

pleted, I have a little advice to give you respecting the 
French language. You had begun to learn it before I left 
America. Your good papa, many years ago, gave me 
what is called a little smattering of it, but indolence and 
the apprehension that I could not read it without a precep- 
tor, made me neglect it, but since I came here, I found I 
must read French or nothing ; your uncle, to interest me in 
it, procured for me Racine, Voltaire, Corneille, and Crebil- 
lon's plays, all of which are at times acted upon the French 
Theatre. I took my dictionary and applied myself to read- 
ing a play a day, by which means I have made considerable 
progress, making it a rule to write down every word which 
I was obliged to look out : translating a few lines every day 
into English, would be another considerable help, and as 
your papa so well understands the language he would assist 
in inspecting your translation ; by this means, and with the 
assistance of the books which you may find in the office, 
you will be able to read it well in a little while. Do you 
look in the office for Racine's Plays and Voltaire's, and 
engage in them ; I will answer for your improvement ; es- 
pecially that volume of Voltaire which contains his Zaire 
and Alzire ; the latter is one of the best plays I ever read. 
There is a comedy of his called Nanine, which I saw 
acted. I wish, my dear, I could transport you in a balloon 
and carry you to the stages here ; you would be charmed 
and enchanted with the scenery, the music, the dresses, 
and the action. Another time I will describe to you all 
these theatres, at present I am shortened for time. Mr. 
Jackson and Mr. Tracy talk of going on Thursday, and say 
our letters must be ready. They will be out here to-mor- 
row morning, and I have not written to more than half the 
friends I designed to. Give my love to cousin Lucy, and 
tell her she is indebted to me a letter. How is Aunt Tufts ? 
You did not say a word about her ; my duty to her. I will 
give her some account of some pretty place that it is pro- 
bable I shall visit before long. Who is preaching at Wey- 
mouth ? Are they likely to settle any one .'' How do Mr. 
and Mrs, Weld ? I had a visit from Mrs> Hay since I have 



212 LETTERS. 

been here. She is in France, at a place called Beaugenci, 
about a hundred miles from Paris. I have had several let- 
ters from her and she was well about ten days ago. Let 
Mrs. Field know that Esther is very happy and contented, 
and that I have not been able (in France) to procure for 
her' the small-pox, as I expected. She has not been ex- 
posed, living out of Paris, and in Paris it is not permitted to 
inoculate. I made inquiries about it of a physician. If I 
should go to London again, I shall there endeavour that she 
has it. She and my other chambermaid keep in a chamber 
by themselves, one of them makes the beds and the other 
sweeps the chambers, which is all they have to do in the 
stirring way, from Monday morning till Saturday night. 
When Esther was well, she undertook with Pauline to wash 
and do up my muslin and lawn, because they battered it to 
death here. She is cleverly now, although she had a severe 
turn for a week. John has not had very good health. He 
was sick soon after he came here, but is pretty smart now, 
and an honest good servant. John always waits upon me 
when I dine abroad, and tends behind my chair, as the 
fashion of this country is always to carry your servants 
with you ; he looks very smart, with his livery, his bag, 
his ruffles, and his laced hat. 

If possible, I will write to Germantown, but I neglect 
writing when I ought, and when I feel roused T have so 
much of it to do, that some one has cause to be offended at 
my neglect, and then, when I once begin, I never know 
when to come to that part which bids you adieu. The be- 
ginning and end I can always assure you of the affectionate 
•regard of vour aunt, Abigail Adams. 



TO MRS. CRANCII. 

Auteuil, 9 December, 1784. 

MY DEAR SISTEK, 

Your letter by way of Amsterdam had a quick passage, 



LETTERS. 213 

and was matter of great pleasure to me. I thank you for 
all your kind and friendly communications, by which you 
carry my imagination back to my friends and acquaintance, 
who were never dearer to me than they now are, though so 
far distant from me. 

I have really commiserated the unhappy refugees more 
than ever, and think no severer punishment need to be 
inflicted upon any mortals than that of banishment from 
their country and friends. Were it my case, I should pray 
for death and oblivion. The consolation which Bolingbroke 
comforted himself with would afford me little satisfaction ; 
for, though the same heavens were spread over me and the 
same sun enlightened me, I should see the heavens covered 
with darkness, and the sun bereft of its splendor. 

We reside here at this village, four miles distant from 
Paris. It is a very agreeable summer situation, but in 
winter I should prefer Paris, on many accounts ; but upon 
none more than that of society. The Americans who are 
in France, and with whom I have any acquaintance, all 
reside in Paris ; they would frequently fall in and spend an 
evening with us ; but to come four miles, unless by particu- 
lar invitation, is what they do not think of; so that our 
evenings, which are very long, are wholly by ourselves. 
You cannot wonder that we all long for the social friends 
whom wc left in America, whose places are not to be 
supplied in Europe. I wish our worthy and sensible parson 
could visit us as he used to do in America ; his society 
would be very precious to us here. 

I go into Paris sometimes to the plays, of which I am 
very fond ; but I so severely pay for it, that I refrain many 
times upon account of my health. It never fails giving me 
a severe headache, and that in proportion as the house is 
thin or crowded, one, two, or three days after. W^e make 
it a pretty general rule to entertain company once a week. 
(I do not call a transient friend or acquaintance dining, by 
that name.) Upon those occasions, our'company consists 
of fifteen, eighteen, or twenty, which commonly costs us as 
many guineas as there are persons, You will naturally be 



214 LETTERS. 

surprised at this, as I was when I first experienced it ; but 
my weekly bills, all of which pass through my hands, 
and are paid by me, convince me of it. Every American 
who comes into Paris, no matter from what State, makes 
his visit, and pays his respects, to the American ministers ; 
all of whom, in return, you must dine. Then there are the 
foreign ministers, from the different courts, who reside here, 
and some French gentlemen. In short, there is no end of 
the expense, which a person in a public character is obliged 
to be at. Yet our countrymen think their ministers are 
growing rich. Believe me, my dear sister, I am more 
anxious for my situation than I was before I came abroad. 
I then hoped that my husband, in his advanced years, would 
have been able to have laid up a little without toiling per- 
petually ; and, had I been with him from the first, he would 
have done it when the allowance of Congress was more 
liberal than it now is ; but cutting off five hundred [guineas] 
at one blow, and at the same time increasing our expenses, 
by removing us from place to place, is more than we are 
able to cope with, and I see no prospect but we must be 
losers at the end of the year. We are now cleverly situ- 
ated. I have got a set of servants as good as I can expect 
to find ; such as I am pretty well satisfied with ; but I appre- 
hend, that, in the month of January, we shall be obliged to 
give up our house, dismiss our servants, and make a 
journey to England. This is not yet fully agreed upon ; 
but, I suppose the next letters from the Court of England 
will determine it ; and this has been Mr. Adams's destiny 
ever since he came abroad. His health, which has suffered 
greatly in the repeated attacks of the fevers he has had, 
obliges him to live out of cities. You cannot procure gen- 
teel lodgings in Paris under twenty-five or thirty guineas a 
month ; which is much dearer than we give for this house, 
besides the comfort of having your family to yourself. 
When I speak of twenty-five and thirty guineas per month, 
not a mouthful of food is included. 

As to speaking French, I make but little progress in that; 
but I have acquired much more facility in reading it. My 



LETTERS. 215 

acquaintance with French ladies is very small. The Mar- 
quise de la Fayette was in the country when I first came, 
and continued out until November. Immediately upon her 
coming into Paris, I called and paid my compliments to her. 
She is a very agreeable lady, and speaks English with tol- 
erable ease. We sent our servant, as is the custom, with 
our names, into the house, to inquire if she was at home. 
We were informed that she was not. The carriage was 
just turning from the door, when a servant came running 
out to inform us that Madame would be glad to see us ; 
upon which Mr. Adams carried me in and introduced me. 
The Marquise met me at the door, and with the freedom of 
an old acquaintance, and the rapture peculiar to the ladies 
of this nation, caught me by the hand and gave me a salute 
upon each cheek, most heartily rejoiced to see me. You 
would have supposed I had been some long absent friend, 
whom she dearly loved. She presented me to her mother 
and sister, who were present with her, all sitting together 
in her bed-room, quite en famille. One of the ladies was 
knitting. The Marquise herself was in a chintz gown. 
She is a middle-sized lady, sprightly and agreeable ; and 
professes herself strongly attached to Americans. She 
supports an amiable character, is fond of her children, and 
very attentive to them, which is not the general character 
of ladies of high rank in Europe. In a few days, she re- 
turned my visit, upon which we sent her a card of invitation 
to dine. She came ; we had a large company. There is 
not a lady in our country, who would have gone abroad to 
dine so little dressed ; and one of our fine American ladies, 
who sat by me, whispered to me, " Good Heavens ! how 
awfully she is dressed." I could not forbear returning the 
whisper, which I most sincerely despised, by replying, that 
the lady's rank sets her above the little formalities of dress. 
She had on a Brown Florence gown and petticoat, — which 
is the only silk, excepting satins, which are worn here in 
winter, — a plain double gauze handkerchief, a pretty cap, 
with a white ribbon in it, and looked very neat. The rouge, 
't is true, was not so artfully laid on, as upon the faces of 



216 LETTERS. 

the American ladies who were present. "Whilst they were 
glittering with diamonds, watch-chains, girdle-buckles, &;c., 
the Marquise was nowise ruffled by her own different appear- 
ance. A really well-bred French lady has the most ease 
in her manners, that you can possibly conceive of. It is 
studied by them as an art, and they render it nature. It 
requires some time, you know, before any fashion quite new 
becomes familiar to us. The dress of the French ladies has 
the most taste and variety in it, of any I have yet seen ; but 
these are topics I must reserve to amuse my young acquaint- 
ance with. I have seen none, however, who carry the ex- 
travagance of dress to such a height as the Americans who 
are here, some of whom, I have reason to think, live at an 
expense double what is allowed to the American ministers." 
They must, however, abide the consequences. 
\ Mr. Jefferson has been sick, and confined to his house for 
six weeks. He is upon the recovery, though very weak 
and feeble. Dr. Franklin is much afflicted with his disorder, 
which prevents his going abroad, unless when the weather 
will permit him to walk. 

12 December, 17&4. 

"Do you say that Scott has arrived in England ? " said I 
to my friend, when he returned from Paris, " and that 
Messrs. Tracy and Jackson have received their letters by 
the post, and that we have none ? How can this be ? 
News, too, of Mr. Smith's arrival." Thus passed the day, 
and the next which followed ; but in the evening a letter 
was brought for J. Q. A. from London, from Charles Storer, 
informing us that he had received sundry large packets from 
America ; not being able to find a private conveyance, he 
had sent them by the new diligence^ lately set up, which 
passed once a week from Calais to Paris. It was evening. 
No sending in that night, because a servant could not get 
them. There was nothing to be done but to wait patiently 
until the next mornino;. As soon as breakfast was over, the 
carriage was ordered, and Mr. J. Q. A. set off for Pans. 
About two o'clock he returned, and was met with a " Well ; 



LETTERS. 217 

have you found the letters ? " " Yes, he had heard of them, 
but could not procure them ; they refused to deliver them at 
the post-office, because he had carried no proof that the 
letters belonged to the family ; he might be an impostor, for 
aught they knew, and they w^ere answerable for them ; he 
scolded and fretted, but all to no purpose ; they finally 
promised to send them out in the evening to our hotel/' 
O how provoking ! About eight in the evening, however, 
they were brought in and safely delivered, to our great joy. 
We were all together. Mr. Adams in his easy-chair upon 
one side of the table, reading Plato's Laws ; Mrs. A. upon 
the other, reading Mr. St. John's " Letters " ; Abby, sitting 
upon the left hand, in a low chair, in a pensive posture ; — 
enter J. Q. A. from his own room, with the letters in his 
hand, tied and sealed up, as if they were never to be read ; 
for Charles had put half a dozen new covers upon them. 
Mr. A. must cut and undo them leisurely, each one watch- 
ing with eagerness. Finally, the originals were discovered ; 
" Here is one for you, my dear, and here is another ; and 
here, Miss Abby, are four, five, upon my word, six, for you, 
and more yet for your mamma. Well, I fancy I shall come 
ofi* but slenderly. One only for me." " Are there none 
for me. Sir ? " says Mr. J. Q. A., erecting his head, and 
walking away a little mortified. 

We then began to unseal and read ; and a rich repast we 
had. Thank you, my dear sister, for your part of the en- 
tertainment. I will not regret sending my journal, uncouth 
as I know it was ; to friends, who so nearly interest them- 
selves in the welfare of each other, every event, as it passes, 
becomes an object of their attention. You will chide me, I 
suppose, for not relating to you an event, which took place 
in London ; that of unexpectedly meeting there my long 
absent friend ; for from his letters by my son, I had no idea 
that he would come. But you know, my dear sister, that /7<f 
poets and painters wisely draw a veil over those scenes, 
which surpass the pen of the one, and the pencil of the y 
other. We were, indeed, a very, very happy family, once 1/ 
more met together, after a separation of four years. For 



218 LETTERS. 

particular reasons we remained but one day in England, 
after the arrival of Mr. A. We set off on Sunday morning, 
as I believe I have before related, in a coach, and our two 
servants in a post-chaise. As we travelled over the same 
part of the country which I had before described in my 
journey up to London, I was not particular in relating my 
journey to Dover. We were about twelve hours in cross- 
ing to Calais. 

The difference is so great between travelling through 
England and through France, that no person could possibly 
imagine that these countries were separated only by a few 
leagues. Their horses, their carriages, their postilions, 
their inns ! I know not how to point out the difference, 
unless you will suppose yourself a stranger in your own 
country, first entertained at Mr. Swan's, then at General 
Warren's, and next at Bracket's tavern. Such is the dif- 
ference, I assure you. From Calais to Paris you pass 
through a number of villages, which have the most miser- 
able appearance, in general ; the houses of the peasants 
being chiefly low, thatched huts, without a single glass win- 
dow. Their fields were well cultivated, and we saw every- 
where women and children laboring in them. There is not, 
however, that rich luxuriance, which beauteous England 
exhibits, nor have they ornamented their fields with the 
hedge, which gives England a vast advantage in appear- 
ance, over this country. The place most worthy of notice 
between Calais and Paris, is Chantilly, where we stopped 
one day ; but, as I was so much fatigued with my journey, I 
made no minute of what I savy there, though richly worth a 
particular description. I must, therefore, request the favor 
of Mr. J. Q. A. to transcribe a few incorrect minutes from 
his journal, which will give you some idea of what we saw 
there. I have not a wish to repeat this journey in the win- 
ter season ; but I greatly fear we shall be obliged to do so, 
as England does not choose to treat in France. This, how- 
ever, you will not mention at present ; as I cannot yet as- 
sure you what will be the result of the last despatches sent 
to that court. 



LETTERS. 219 

This is the twelfth of December ; and a severer snow- 
storm than the present is seldom seen in our country at this 
season. I was pleased at the appearance, because it looked 
so American ; but the poor Frenchman will shrug his shoul- 
ders. 

I feel very loth to part with my son, and shall miss him 
more than I can express ; but I am convinced that it will be 
much for his advantage to spend one year at Harvard, pro- 
vided he makes, as I have no reason to doubt, a suitable im- 
provement of his time and talents ; the latter, the partiality 
of a mother would say, no young fellow of his age can 
boast superior ; yet there are many branches of knowledge 
in which he is deficient, and which, I think, he will be best 
able to acquire in his own country. I am sure he will ac- 
quire them with more pleasure to himself, because he will 
find there companions and associates. Besides, America is 
the theatre for a young fellow who has any ambition to dis- 
tinguish himself in knowledge and literature; so that, if his 
father consents, I think it not unlikely that you will see him 
in the course of next summer. I hope I shall follow him 
the next spring. Europe will have fewer charms for me 
then, than it has at present. 

I know not how to bid adieu. You did not say a word of 
uncle Quincy. How does he do ? My duty to him ; tell 
him, if Mr. A. was in Braintree, he would walk twice a 
week to see him. Madam Quincy, too, how is she ? My 
respects to her, and to Mr. Wibird, who, I think, misses me 
as much as I do his friendly visits. 

Affectionately yours, 

A. A. 



TO MRS. SHAW. 

Auteuil, 14 December, 1784. 

MY DEAR SISTER, 

« 

From the interest you take in every thing which concerns 
your friends, I hear you inquiring how I do, how I live, 



220 LETTERS. 

whom I see, where I visit, who visit me. I know not whether 
your curiosity extends so far as the color of the house, which 
is white stone, and to the furniture of the chamber where I 
sleep. If it does, you must apply to Betsey Cranch for in-: 
formation, whose fancy has employed itself so busily as to 
seek for intelligence even in the minutiae ; and, although 
Ihey look trifling upon paper, yet, if our friends take an in- 
terest in them, that renders them important ; and I am the 
rather tempted to a compliance from the recollection, that, 
when I have received a sentimental letter from an absent 
friend, I have passed over the sentiment at the first reading, 
and hunted for that part, which more particularly related to 
themselves. 

This village, where we reside, is four miles from Paris, and 
is famous for nothing that I know of, but the learned men 
who have inhabited it. Such were Boileau, Moliere, D'Agues- 
seau, and Helvetius. The first and last lived near this hotel, 
and Boileau's garden is preserved as a choice relic. As to 
my own health, it is much as usual. I suffer through want 
of exercise, and grow too fat. I cannot persuade myself to 
walk an hour in the day, in a long entry which we have, 
merely for exercise ; and as to the streets, they are con- 
tinually a quagmire. No walking there without boots or 
wooden shoes, neither of which are my feet calculated for. 
Mr. Adams makes it his constant practice to walk several 
miles every day, without which he would not be able to pre- 
serve his health, whicli at best is but infirm. He professes 
w himself so much happier for having his family with him, 
that I feel amply gratified in having ventured across the 
ocean. He is determined, that nothing but the inevitable 
^ / stroke of death shall in future separate him at least from 
''^ one part of it ; so that I know not what climates I may yet 
have to visit, — more, I fear, than will be agreeable to either 
of us. 

If you want to know the manners and customs of this 
country, I answer you, that pleasure is the business of life, 
more especially upon a Sunday. We have no days with us 
or rather with you, by which I can give you any idea of 



LETTERS. 221 

them, except Commencements and Elections. We have a 
pretty wood within a few rods of this house, which is called 
the Bois de Boulogne. This is cut into many regular walks, 
and during the summer months, upon Sundays, it looked 
like Boston and Cambridge Commons upon the public days 
I have mentioned. Paris is a horrid dirty city, and I know 
not whether the inhabitants could exist, if they did not come 
out one day in the week to breathe a fresh air. I have sat 
at my window of a Sunday, and seen whole cartloads of 
them at a time. I speak literally ; for those, who neither 
own a coach nor are able to hire one, procure a cart, which 
in this country is always drawn by horses. Sometimes they 
have a piece of canvass over it. There are benches placed 
in them, and in this vehicle you will see as many well- 
dressed women and children as can possibly pile in, led out 
by a man, or driven. Just at the entrance of the wood they 
descend. The day is spent in music, dancing, and every 
kind of play. It is a very rare thing to see a man with a 
hat anywhere but under his arm, or a woman with a bonnet 
upon her head. This would brush off the powder, and spoil 
the elegant toupet. They have a fashion of wearing a hood 
or veil either of gauze or silk. If you send for a tailor in 
this country, your servant will very soon introduce to you a 
gentleman full dressed in black, with his head as white as a 
snow-bank, and which a hat never rumpled. If you send to 
a mantuamaker, she will visit you in the same style, with 
her silk gown and petticoat, her head in ample order, though, 
perhaps, she lives up five pair of stairs, and eats nothing 
but bread and water, as two thirds of these people do. We 
have a servant in our family, who dresses more than his 
young master, and would not be guilty of tending table 
unfrizzed, upon any consideration. He dresses the hair of 
his young master, but has his own dressed by a hair-dresser. 
By the way, I was guilty of a sad mistake in London. I 
desired the servant to procure me a barber. The fellow 
stared, and was loth to ask for what purpose I wanted him. 
At last he said, " You mean a hair-dresser. Madam, I 
believe .'' " " Ay," says I, " I want my hair dressed." 



222 LETTERS. 

"Why, barbers, Madam, in this country, do nothing but 
shave." 

When first I came to this country, I was loth to submit 
to such an unnecessary number of domestics, as it appeared 
to me, but I soon found that they would not let me do with- 
out them ; because, every one having a fixed and settled 
department, they would not lift a pin out of it, although two 
thirds of the time they had no employment. We are how- 
ever thankful that we are able to make eight do for us, 
though we meet with some difficulties for want of a ninth. 
Do not suppose from this, that we live remarkably nice. I 
never put up in America with what I do here. I often think 
of Swift's High Dutch bride, who had so much nastiness, 
and so much pride. 

Adieu. Most affectionately yours, 

A. A. 



TO MISS E. C RANCH. 

Auteuil, January 3, 1785. 

MY DEAR BETSEY, 

I AM determined not to neglect my pen for so long an inter- 
val as I did before your last letters, for then I always go to 
it with reluctance. Mr. Appleton came here this day week 
from London, and as he thinks he shall return before Cap- 
tain Young sails, I am induced to proceed to the fulfilment 
of my promise, and attempt a description of the French 
Theatre. I have, from time to time, surveyed it with as 
much accuracy as I am capable of, that I might be able to 
render my account intelligible. If I fail in architecture, 
your lively imagination must supply my deficiency. 

This superb building, the French Theatre, is situated near 
the Palace of Luxembourg, and was built by Messrs. Du- 
vally and Peyre, the ablest architects of the king. This 
monument is open on every side, and is in the form of a 
parallelogram (for this figure see the Preceptor, plate 1st, 



LETTERS. 223 

in Geometry, figure 9, B. D.) ; this is surrounded with por- 
ticos which form galleries, by which means you go up and 
come down under cover. The front, where you first enter, 
is simple, but noble, and announces its majesty by a peri- 
style, or a circular range of pillars jutting out, decorated 
with eight columns in the Doric order ; you ascend to it by 
nine large stone stairs. The back is ornamented with par- 
titions, and the whole is covered by an attic, which term 
signifies having the roof concealed, and is a peculiar kind 
of base used sometimes in the Doric and Ionic orders. 
Under this porch there are three doors, each of which in- 
troduces you into a hall decorated with columns in the Tus- 
can order (for this order, see the Preceptor) ; these sustain 
an arched roof. In front of the middle door, and at the 
bottom of the hall, there is a marble statue of Voltaire. 
The doors which open upon both sides of this statue, serve 
as an entrance into a large entry, which was designed as a 
safe retreat in case of fire. Accordingly it communicates 
with the highest galleries as well as the pit, the orchestra, 
and the stairs of all the boxes. In this entry, you are pre- 
sented with two great flights of stairs opposite each other, 
which conduct you equally to the first stage or two galleries 
in coUonade, a series of pillars disposed in a circle, which 
communicate with the entry of the first boxes, and through 
them into the great public retiring-room. This room is 
decorated in the Doric order of a new invention. It repre- 
sents a hall in the Italian form, square at the bottom and 
octagon (which is a plain figure, consisting of eight equal 
sides and angles) at the first entablature (that is, at the first 
frieze and cornice of the pillars) and circular at the top 
which supports the cupola, which signifies a dome, the hem- 
ispherical summit of a building. This hall is consecrated to 
the memory of the great men, who have rendered the French 
Theatre illustrious ; accordingly you find their marble busts 
placed round it. Moliere, as the father of comedy, has his 
seat over the chimney, and on the right hand is Piron and Vol- 
taire, Racine and Regnard, upon the left Crebillon Nericault 
Destouches^ Pierre Corneille, Dufresnoy. Over the doors are 



224 LETTERS. 

the medallions of Plautus, Terence, Sophocles, and Euripi- 
des. This hall is enlightened by six large lustres, each of 
which holds fifty lights ; they are of great service to the entry 
which communicates with it. To compare great things with 
small, imagine yourself in the gallery of the cupola of Dr. 
Cooper's meeting-house, and this cupola under the covering 
which I have described. It has as many small doors, just 
large enough for one person to enter at a time, as there are 
boxes within ; open one of them and it introduces you into the 
first boxes of the great theatre. Look above you, and you will 
see three galleries divided into boxes in the same manner as 
the first. Look below you, and you will see what is called the 
amphitheatre, in which are two rows of benches advanced 
sufficiently forward to give the spectators an equal chance 
of seeing. You naust never lose sight of the perfect circular 
figure of the house, and that taking off a quarter part of your 
circle for the theatre, you leave the other three quarters for 
the spectators, who all necessarily face the theatre ; below 
the amphitheatre is the pit upon the first floor, and here are 
rows of benches, that every person may sit down ; between 
the pit and theatre is the orchestra. The musicians, when 
sitting, have their heads just even with the floor of the thea- 
tre. The inside of the boxes are covered with green velvet, 
and cushions of the same ; the first boxes will hold six per- 
sons, but four are sufficient for comfort. The front of the 
boxes, which resembles the gallery of a meeting-house, is 
ornamented with drapery, and the second galleries, which are 
advanced a little forward of the first, are adorned with gar- 
lands of flowers and fruit in relievo, which you know is the 
seeming prominence of a figure in sculpture. Above the 
uppermost boxes are twelve bendings in the vault, which is 
supported by twelve pilasters. The twelve signs of the Zo- 
diac ornament these arches which are all in arabesque 
sculpture. Before the scene are four pillars adorned with 
caryatides as large as life, — this is an order of columns under 
the representation of women clothed in long robes and serv- 
ing to support entablatures. For a figure of this kind look 
in the Preceptor to the Corinthian order, and for the arabesque 



LETTERS. 225 

whichiadornstihe vault, look to the composite order, against 
the teBm, foliages, a, a. Over the top of the stage is the 
Ly'fe'of:iA/pbll©^ supported by Melpomene, who represents 
the^-Tfagic JMi^Jse,^ and holds a dagger in her hand, and 
Thalia'i, tl>eCprnic Muse, who has a mask in hers. These 
figures are in' Sculpture as large as life. The inside of this 
theatre is painted a sky-blue, and the ornaments are all 
white. From the middle of this vault hangs a prodigious 
lustre, containing, I imagine, two hundred lights. There is 
over this lustre, in the arch of the ceiling, a circle, perhaps 
forty feet in circumference, which is inlaid with some shining 
metal, and reflects back the lights in such a manner that I 
have easily read the finest print, as I sat in the box. The 
floor of the stage is lighted by two rows of lamps, which 
are placed upon it just before the orchestra, and are so con- 
structed as to be drawn below it, whenever the part acted 
requires that it should be night. Fancy, my dear Betsey, 
this house filled with two thousand well-dressed gentlemen 
and ladies ! The house is large enough to hold double the 
number. Suppose some tragedy to be represented which 
requires the grandest scenery and the most superb habits of 
kings and queens, the parts well performed, and the passions 
all excited, until you imagine yourself living at the very 
period, and witnessing what you see represented, or, in the 
words of Pope, 

" Live o''er the scene, and be what you behold." 

Can you form to yourself a higher repast, or one more 
agreeable to your taste ? To my dictionary and the Pre- 
ceptor I am indebted for the explanation of the terms of 
architecture, and, like many other preceptors, whilst I have 
endeavoured to instruct, I have found my own knowledge 
increased, for 1 should never have comprehended half the 
beauties of this theatre, if I had not attempted a description 
of them to you. 

Since I began this letter, yours of the sixth of November 
reached me. You was at Germantown assisting a worthy ' 

15 



226 LETTERS. 

family, whose various and complicated distresses would fur- 
nish sufficient materials for a tragic muse. The book of Fate 
is wisely closed from the prying eye of man, or " who could 
suffer being here below." My affectionate regards to them. 
My paper calls upon me to close and to assure you, whilst I 
have sufficient space, of the affection of your Aunt, 

A. A. 



TO THE REVEREND JOHN SHAW. 

Auteuil, 18 January, 1785. 

I FIND, Sir, what I never doubted, that you are a gentleman 
of your word. I thank you for the agreeable proof which 
you have given me of it ; and, that I may not be wanting in. 
punctuality, I have taken my pen to discharge the debt which 
I acknowledge is due to you. 

Amongst the public edifices which are worthy of notice in 
this country, are several churches. I went, a few days since, 
to see three of the most celebrated in Paris. They are pro- 
digious masses of stone buildings, and so surrounded by 
houses which are seven stories high, that the sun seldom en- 
lightens them. I found them so cold and damp, that I could 
only give them a very hasty and transient survey. The 
architecture, the sculpture, the paintings, are beautiful in- 
deed, and each of them would employ my pen for several 
pages, when the weather will permit me to take a more ac- 
curate and critical inspection of them. These churches are 
open every day, and at all times of the day ; so that you 
never enter them without finding priests upon their knees, 
half a dozen at a time, and more at the hours of confession. 
All kinds of people and of all ages go in without ceremony, 
and regardless of each other ; fall upon their knees, cross 
themselves, say their Pater-nosters and Ave-Marias silently, 
and go out again without being noticed or even seen by the 
priests, whom I found always kneeling with their faces to- 



LETTERS. 227 

wards the altar. Round these churches, (for they have not 
pews and galleries as with us, chairs alone being made use 
of,) there are little boxes or closets about as large as a sen- 
try-box, in which is a small grated window, which communi- 
cates with another closet of the same kind. One of them 
holds the person who is confessing, and the other the confes- 
sor, who places his ear at this window, hears the crime, 
absolves the transgressor, and very often makes an assigna- 
tion for a repetition of the same crime, or perhaps a new one. 
I do not think this a breach of charity ; for can we suppose, 
that, of the many thousands whom the religion of the country 
obliges to celibacy, one quarter part of the number can find 
its influence sufficiently powerful to conquer those passions 
which nature has implanted in man, when the gratification of 
them will cost them only a few livres in confession ? 

I was at the church of St. Roch about ten o'clock in the 
morning, and, whilst I was there, about three hundred little 
boys came in from some charity seminary which belongs to 
that church. They had books in their hands. They follow- 
ed each other in regular order, and fell upon their knees in 
rows like soldiers in rank and file. There might have been 
fifty other persons in the church at their devotion. Every 
thing was silent and solemn throughout this vast edifice. I 
was walking with a slow pace round it, when, all at once, the 
drear silence which reigned was suddenly broken by all 
these boys at one mstant chanting with loud voices, which 
made the dome ring, and me start, for I had no apprehension 
of any sound. I have never been to any of these churches 
upon a Sunday. When the weather is warmer, I design it. 
But their churches seem rather calculated to damp devotion 
than excite it. I took such a cold there as I have not had 
since I have been in France. I have been several times to 
the chapel of the Dutch ambassador, and should go oftenei- 
if I could comprehend the discourses, which are all in French. 
I believe the American embassy is the only one to which 
chaplains are not allowed. Do Congress think that their 
ministers have no need of grace ? or that religion is not a 
necessary article for them ? Sunday will not feel so to me 



228 LETTERS. 

whilst I continue in this country. It is high holiday for all 
France. 

We had a visit the other day from no less a personage than 
Abbe Thayer, in his habit, who has become a convert. His 
visit was to me, I suppose, for he was a perfect stranger to 
Mr. Adams. He told us that he had spent a year at Rome, 
that he belonged to a seminary of St. Sulpice in Paris, that 
he never knew what religion was, until his conversion, and 
that he designed to return to America in a year or two, to see 
if he could not convert his friends and acquaintance. After 
talking some time in this style, he began to question Mr. 
Avdams if he believed the Bible, and to rail at Luther and 
Calvin ; upon which Mr. Adams took him up pretty short, 
and told him that he was not going to make a father confessor 
of him, that his religion was a matter that he did not look 
upon himself accountable for to any one but his Maker, and 
that he did not choose to hear either Luther or Calvin treated 
in such a manner. Mr. Abbe took his leave after some time, 
vvitliout any invitation to repeat his visit. 

1 am very truly yours, 

A. A. 



TO MRS. STORER. 1 

Auteuil, 20 Janiiary, 1785. 

MY DEAR MADAM, 

For your kind congratulations upon my arrival in Europe 
receive my thanks. Those only, who have crossed the 
ocean, can realize the pleasure which is felt at the sight of 
land. The inexperienced traveller is more sensible of this, 
than those who frequently traverse the ocean. I could 
scarcely realize that thirty days had removed me so far dis- 
tant from my native shore ; but the new objects which sur- 
rounded me did not efface from my remembrance the dearer 

1 This is the same lody io whom the first letter of the present collection 
was addressed, and tlie Editor is indebted for both to the same source. 



LETTERS. 229 

ones which I left behind me. " And is this the country, and 
are these the people, who so lately waged a cruel war against 
us?" were reflections, which did not escape me amidst all 
the beauty and grandeur, which presented themselves to my 
eyes. You have doubtless heard from my friends, that I was 
pleased with England, and that I met with much civility and 
politeness there, and a large share of it from your connexions. 

I am now resident in a country, to which many Ameri- 
cans give the preference. The climate is said to be more 
temperate and mild. I can pass no judgment by compari- 
son, but that there are more fogs in both, than are agreeable 
to me. A North American, however, has no right to com- 
plain of the rigor of a climate, which, in the middle of Jan- 
uary, is as mild as our May ; though I think the fall of the 
year was near as cold as ours. 

Do you know, my dear Madam, what a task you have set 
me ? a description of ladies ! 

" Catch, ere she change, the Cynthia of this minute." 

To a lady of Mrs. Storer's discernment, the mere super- 
ficial adorning of the sex would afford but little satisfaction. 
Yet this is all I shall be able to recount to her. A stranger 
in the country, not only to the people, but to the language, 
I cannot judge of mental accomplishment, unless you will 
allow that dress and appearance are the index of the mind. 
The etiquette of this country requires the first visit from the 
stranger. You will easily suppose, that I have not been 
very fond of so awkward a situation as going to visit ladies, 
merely to make my dumb compliments, and receive them 
in return. I have declined visiting several personages, to 
whom Mr. Adams would have introduced me, upon this ac- 
count. An acquaintance with a gentleman by no means 
insures to you a knowledge of his lady ; for no one will be 
so ill-bred as to suppose an intercourse between them. It 
is from my observations of the French ladies at the theatres 
and public walks, that my chief knowledge of them is de- 
rived. 

The dress of the French ladies is, like their manners, 
light, airy, and genteel. They are easy in their deport- 



230 LETTERS. 

merit, eloquent in their speech, their voices soft and musical, 
and their attitude pleasing. Habituated to frequent the 
theatres from their earliest age, they become perfect mis- 
tresses of the art of insinuation and the powers of persua- 
sion. Intelligence is communicated to every feature of the 
face, and to every limb of the body ; so that it may with 
truth be said, every man of this nation is an actor, and 
every woman an actress. It is not only among the rich 
and polite, who attend the great theatres, that this art is 
acquired, but there are a dozen small theatres, to which all 
classes resort. There are frequently given pieces at the 
opera, and at the small theatres, where the actors speak not 
a single word, but where the action alone will delineate to 
you the story. I was at one of this kind last evening. The 
story is too long to relate here ; but there was a terrible 
sea-slorm in it ; the rolling of the sea, the mounting of the 
vessel upon the waves, in which I could discern a lady and 
little child in the utmost distress, the terrible claps of thun- 
der and flashes of lightning, which flew from one side of 
the stage to the other, really worked me up to such a pitch, 
that I trembled with terror. The vessel was finally dashed 
upon the rocks, and the lady and child were cast on a de- 
sert island. 

The dancing on the stage is a great amusement to me, 
and the dresses are beautifully fanciful. The fashionable 
shape of the ladies here is, to be very small at the bottom 
of the waist, and very large round the shoulders, — a wasp's, 
— pardon me, ladies, that I should make such a comparison, 
it is only in shape that I mean to resemble you to them. 
You and I, Madam, must despair of being in the mode. 

I enclose to you the pattern of a stomacher, cape and 
forebody of a gown ; different petticoats are much worn, 
and then the stomacher must be of the petticoat color, and 
the cape of the gown, as well as the sleeves. Sometimes a 
false sleeve is made use of to draw over the other, and, in 
that case, the cape is like the gown. Gowns and petticoats 
are worn without any trimming of any kind. That is 
reserved for full dress only, when very large hoops and 
negligees, with trains three yards long, are worn. But 



LETTERS. 231 

these are not used, except at Court, and then only upon 
public occasions ; the Queen herself, and the ladies of honor, 
dressing very plain upon other days. Abby has made you 
a miniature handkerchief, just to show you one mode ; but 
caps, hats, and handkerchiefs are as various as ladies' and 
milliners' fancies can devise. 

Thus, Madam, having displayed the mode to you, be so 
good as to present Mr. Adams's and my regards to Mr. 
Storer, and in one word, to all who inquire after your affec- 
tionate friend, 

A. Adams. 



TO MISS LUCY CRANCH. 

Auteuilj 24 January, 1785. 

MY DEAR LUCY, 

I HOPE you have before now received my letter, which was 
ordered on board with Captain Lyde, but put on board an- 
other vessel, because it was said she would sail first. By 
that you will see that I did not wait to receive a letter from 
you first. I thank you for yours of November 6th, which 
reached me last evening ; and here I am, seated by youi 
cousin J. Q. A.'s fireside, where, by his invitation, I usually 
write. 

And in the first place, my dear Lucy, shall I find a little 
fault with you ? a fault, from which neither your good sis- 
ter, nor cousin Abby, is free. It is that all of you so much 
neglect your handwriting. I know that a sentiment is 
equally wise and just, written in a good or bad hand ; but 
then there is certainly a more pleasing appearance, when 
the lines are regular, and the letters distinct and well cut. 
A sensible woman is so, whether she be handsome or ugly ; 
but who looks not with most pleasure upon the sensible 
beauty ? " Why, my dear aunt," methinks I hear you say, 

only look at your own handwriting." Acknowledged ; I 



(( 



232 LETTERS. 

am very sensible of it, and it is from feeling the disadvan- 
tages of it myself, that I am the more solicitous that my 
young acquaintance should excel me, whilst they have 
leisure, and their fingers are young and flexible. Your 
cousin, J. Q. A., copied a letter for me the other day, and, 
upon my word, T thought there was some value in it, from 
the new appearance it acquired. 

I have written several times largely to your sister, and, as 
I know you participate with her, I have not been so particu- 
lar in scribbling to every one of the family ; for an imagina- 
tion must be more inventive than mine, to supply materials 
with sufficient variety to afford you all entertainment. 
Through want of a better subject, I will relate to you a 
custom of this country. You must know that the religion 
of this country requires abundance of feasting and fasting, 
and each person has his particular saint, as well as each 
calling and occupation. To-morrow is to be celebrated, le 
jour des rois. The day before this feast it is customary to 
make a large paste pie, into which one bean is put. Each 
person at table cuts his slice, and the one who is so lucky as 
to obtain the bean, is dubbed king or queen. Accordingly, 
to-day, when I went in to dinner, I found one upon our 
table. 

Your cousin Abby began by taking the first slice ; but 
alas ! poor girl, no bean, and no queen. In the next place, 
your cousin John seconded her by taking a larger cut, and 

as cautious as cousin T when he inspects merchandise, 

bisected his paste with mathematical circumspection ; but to 
him it pertained not. By this time, I was ready for my 
part ; but first I declared that I had no cravings for royalty. 
I accordingly separated my piece with much firmness, no- 
wise disappointed that it fell not to me. Your uncle, who 
was all this time picking his chicken bone, saw us divert 
ourselves without saying any thing ; but presently he seized 
the remaining half, and to crumbs went the poor paste, cut 
here and slash there ; when, behold the bean ! AnS thus," 
said he, " are kingdoms obtained ; " but the servant, who 
stood by and saw the havoc, declared solemnly that he could 



LETTERS. 233 

not retain the title, as the laws decreed it to chance, and not 
to force. 

How is General Warren's family ? Well, I hope, or I 
should have heard of it. I am sorry Mrs. Warren is so 
scrupulous about writing to me. I forwarded a long letter 
to her some time since. Where is Miss Nancy Quincy ? 
Well, I hope. We often laugh at your cousin John about 
her. He says her stature would be a great recommendation 
to him, as he is determined never to marry a tall woman, 
lest her height should give her a superiorhy over him. He 
is generally thought older than your cousin Abby ; and part- 
ly, I believe, because his company ia with those much older 
than himself. 

As to the Germantown family, my soul is grieved for 
them. Many are the afflictions of the righteous. Would to 
Heaven that the clouds would disperse, and give them a 
brighter day. My best respects to them. Let Mrs, Field 
know that Esther is quite recovered, and as gay as a lark. 
She went to Paris the other day with Pauline, to see a play, 
which is called " Figaro." It is a piece much celebrated, 
and has had sixty-eight representations ; and every thing was 
so new to her, that Pauline says, " Est is crazed." 

Affectionately yours, 

A. A. 



TO MRS. CRANCH. 

Auteuil, 20 February, 1785. 

MY DEAR SISTEE, 

This day eight months I sailed for Europe, since which 
many new and interesting scenes have presented themselves 
before me. I have seen many of the beauties, and some of 
the deformities, of this old world. I have been more than 
ever convinced, that there is no summit of virtue, and no 
^ depth of vice, which human nature is not capable of rising 
to, on the one hand, or sinking into, on the other. I have 



234 LETTERS. 

felt the force of an observation, which I have read, that 
daily example is the most subtile of poisons. ' I have found 
my taste reconciling itself to habits, customs, and fashions, 
which at first disgusted me. The first dance which I saw 
upon the stage shocked me ; the dresses and beauty of the 
performers were enchanting ; but, no sooner did the dance 
commence, than I felt my delicacy wounded, and I was 
ashamed to be seen to look at them. Girls, clothed in the 
thinnest silk and gauze, with their petticoats short, springing 
two feet from the floor, poising themselves in the air, with 
their feet flying, and as perfectly showing their garters and 
drawers as though no petticoat had been worn, was a sight 
altogether new to me. Their motions are as light as air, and 
as quick as lightning ; they balance themselves to astonish- 
ment. No description can equal the reality. They are 
daily ti'ained to it, from early infancy, at a royal academy, 
instituted for this purpose. You will very often see little 
creatures, not more than seven or eight years old, as un- 
dauntedly performing their parts as the eldest among them. 
Shall I speak a truth, and say that repeatedly seeing these 
dances has worn ofl* that disgust, which I at first felt, an( 
that I see them now with pleasure ? Yet, when I considei 
the tendency of these things, the passions they must excite] 
and the known character, even to a proverb, which is atj 
tached to an opera girl, my abhorrence is not lessened, an( 
neither my reason nor judgment has accompanied my senj 
sibility in acquiring any degree of callousness. The art o\ 
dancing is carried to the highest degree of perfection that" 
it is capable of. At the opera, the house is neither so grand, 
nor of so beautiful architecture, as the French theatre, but 
it is more frequented by the beau monde, who had rather be 
amused than instructed. The scenery is more various and 
more highly decorated, the dresses more costly and rich. 
And O ! the music, vocal and instrumental ; it has a soft^ 
persuasive power, and a dying sound. Conceive a highly 
decorated building, filled with youth, beauty, grace, ease, 
clad in all the most pleasing and various ornaments of dress, 
which fancy can form ; these objects singing like cherubs 



LETTERS. 235 

to the best tuned instruments, most skilfully handled, the 
softest, tenderest strains ; every attitude corresponding with 
the music ; full of the god or goddess whom they celebrate ; 
the female voices accompanied by an equal number of 
Adonises. Think you that this city can fail of becoming a 
Cythera, and this house the temple of Venus ? 

" When music softens, and when dancing fires," 

it requires the immortal shield of the invincible Minerva, to 
screen youth from the arrows which assail them on every 
side. 

As soon as a girl sets her foot upon the floor of the opera, 
she is excommunicated by the Church, and denied burial in 
holy ground. She conceives nothing worse can happen to 
her ; all restraint is thrown off, and she delivers herself to 
the first who bids high enough for her. But let me turn 
from a picture, of which the outlines are but just sketched ; 
I would willingly veil the rest, as it can only tend to excite 
sentiments of horror. 

13 March, 1785. 
You will see, by the former date, that my letter has lain 
by me some time. Mr. Pickman, of Salem, who is going to 
London, has promised to take this with him, and will carry 
it himself, if no opportunity offers before, to America. We 
are all well ; some preparing for America, and others long- 
ing for the time of their departure thither. What a sad 
misfortune it is to have the body in one place, and the soul 
in another. Indeed, my dear sister, I hope to come home 
the spring after the present. My acquaintance here is not 
large, nor ever will be. Then, what are dinners, and visits 
of ceremony, compared with "the feast of reason, and the 
flow of soul " ? I have dined twice at the Marquis de la 
Fayette's, with a large company, some of whom I was 
acquainted with, and others that I never saw before ; and 
to-morrow are to dine here, Mr. Brantzen, the Ambassador 
Extraordinary from Holland ; the Chevalier de la Luzerne, 
late Minister in America ; Marquis de la Fayette and his 



236 LETTERS. 

lady ; Mr. W. T. Franklin, late Secretary to the American 
Commission ; Colonel Humphreys, our present Secretary ; 
and Mr. Williams, a worthy, clever gentleman, who has 
been very friendly to us ; Mr. Jonathan Williams, a Bos- 
tonian, who very often comes to have a social talk about all 
our old friends and acquaintance in Boston ; the Chevalier 
Jones ; Mr. Bingham and lady ; a Mr. and Mrs. Rucker, 
and Mrs. Rucker's sister, lately from New York, strangers 
to me ; but all strangers, from every part of America, visit | 
the American Ministers, and then are invited to dine with 
them. The Due de la Vauguyon was invited also; but, not 
hearing from him, I suppose him not in Paris at present ; he 
was late Minister from this Court to Holland. Madame la 
Marquise de la Fayette is a very agreeable lady, and has 
two very pretty children ; the third, Virginia, I have never 
seen ; it is in the country ; the eldest daughter is seven 
years old, and George Washington about five. After dinner, 
Miss and Master are always introduced to the company ; ^ 
both of them speak English, and behave very prettily. 
Madame de la Fayette has promised to bring me acquainted 
with her mother, the Duchess de Noailles, who is now at 
Versailles, waiting for the birth of a Prince, or Princess, which 
is daily expected ; and, as she is one of the ladies of honor 
to the Queen, her attendance is indispensable. , 

I have scarcely room left to say, that I am. 

Very affectionately yours, 

A. A. 



TO MISS E. CRANCH. 

Auteuil, S March, 1785. 

MY DEAR BETSEY, 

There is a gentleman by the name of Blaney, a Philadel- 
phian, who is, with other company, to dine here to-day, and 
on Monday is going to England. I think to charge him i| 
with a letter or two. I know not of any present convey- 



LETTERS. 237 

ance, unless Young is yet there ; who has been going every 
week ever since December, and who has, as my friends will 
find, letters on board written in that month, which is very 
discouraging. I could write by way of New York, monthly, 
but I am loth to load my friends with postage. If Mr. 
Gerry continues there, I shall sometimes take the freedom 
of covering a letter to him, and getting him to forward it 
by a private hand, and my friends may in the same manner 
enclose at any time under cover to Mr. Jay, who is Minister 
for Foreign Affairs, directed to your uncle, which letters 
have a right to come as far as the packet without postage, 
and from thence will not be more expensive, nor indeed so 
much so, as those which come by way of England. Never 
omit writing for want of subjects ; every thing and every 
object is interesting to me, ten thousand times more so than 
any thing which I can write you from hence, because I had 
almost said I love every thing and every body in that coun- 
try. Tell me when you begin to garden ; I can brag over 
you in that respect, for our flower-pots were set out in Feb- 
ruary, and our garden began to look smiling. The orange- 
trees were not, however, brought out of the house, and it 
was very lucky they were not, for since this month com- 
menced, came a nipping frost, very unusual at this season, 
and stiffened all our flower-roots. I really fear they are 
killed. Oh, Betsey, how you would delight in this garden ! 
As for the house, it is large, and with twenty thousand livres 
of expense in repairs and furniture, would be very elegant, 
and fit for a minister to live in ; but as it is, let it pass, it is 
is good as we can afford, and has a fine clear air. The 
garden, too, is much out of repair, and bespeaks the ex- 
ravagant profusion of its owners, who are not able to put it 
II order. The garden is, however, a beautiful walk in 
ummer, and the beautiful variety of flowers would tempt 
iron to tan yourself in picking and trimming them. The 
garden has a number of statues and figures, but there is 
lone which pleases me more than one of a boy who has 
'obbed a bird of her nest of young, which he holds in one 
land, and in the other the old bird, who has laid hold of his 



238 LETTERS. 

finger with her bill, and is biting it furiously, so that the 
countenance of the lad is in great distress, between the fear 
of losing the young, and the pain of his finger. Cousin 
Abby says, " Madam, the company have come, some of 
them." " Well, then, go down and entertain them ; for I 
will finish my letter to Betsey." There is amongst them a 
Mr. Pickman, of Salem, to whom Mr. Tracy gave a letter 
of introduction ; do you know him ? I have never seen 
him yet ; he called and left his name one day, and his ad- 
dress. Your Cousin John returned his visit, but not being 
at home, he also left a card, and we sent him an invitation 
to dine here to-day ; that is the form and process in this 
country. There is a Mr. Williams here who was in Boston 
after I left it ; he is a Swiss by birth, a very clever, sensi- 
ble, obliging man, who is a very great intimate of Mr. Jef- 
ferson's, which alone would be sufficient to recommend 
him ; he dines here to-day, and Colonel Humphreys, our 
Secretary, a Mr. Waren, a Carolinian, and Miss Jefferson, 
from the walls of her convent, does us the favor of a visit 
to-day. These form our society for this day. Oh, could I 
transport you and your dear family, how much it would 
enhance the pleasure! Mr. T., too, should assist at table, 
as he is very handy that way ; but his carving abilities' 
would be almost useless here, as the provisions seldom want*, 
any thing more than shaking to pieces. I have got a long ; 
letter begun to your mamma, and I have had some thoughts -, 
of changing the address and sending it to you, only I ow^e : 
her one, and not you. Tell Lucy I would give a great deal 
for one of her cats. I have absolutely had an inclination to 
buy me some little images, according to the mode of this 
country, that I might have some little creatures to amuse 
myself with ; not that I have turned worshipper of those 
things, neither. 

There is not one creature of you that will tell me a word 
of our good parson. How does he do ? Alas ! he deserves 
jt, for being a single individual ; I will, however, remember 
him, and tender him my respects. 

I design to get my other letters ready to send about) 



LETTERS. 239 

the middle of the week, but if this should have the luck to 
get a passage as soon as it arrives in England, why it may 
possibly travel along, accompanied only with one to Dr. 
Tufts, and another to Mrs. Field, which is all I have had 
leisure to get ready. Your Cousin John thinks very much 
of it, that none of his friends have written to him. Re- 
member me to all my dear friends ; I can name none in 
particular, but your good parents. I have vanity enough to 
think it would take all the rest of my paper to enumerate 
them. I have written you all this, to show you how to 
trifle ; and, as it is unworthy of a copy, and written in 
great haste, I must apologize for its inaccuracy. Believe 
me, my dear girl, affectionately yours, 

A. A. 

I dai'e not send my elder sister such a scrip ; besides, I may 
venture to trifle with the daughter, when her mamma re- 
quires a steady pen. 



TO MISS LUCY CRANCH. 



Auteuil, 7 May, 17S5. 

I PRESUME my dear Lucy would be disappointed, if her 
cousin did not deliver her a line from her aunt. Yet it is 
hardly fair to take up an exhausted pen to address a young 
lady, whose eager search after knowledge entitles her to 
every communication in my power. 

I was in hopes to have visited several curiosities before 
your cousin left us, that I might have been able to relate 
them to my friends ; but several engagements in the com- 
pany way, and some preparation for his voyage, together 
with the necessary arrangements for our own journey, have 
so fully occupied me, that I fear I shall fail in my intentions. 
We are to dine to day with Mr. Jeflerson. Should any 
thing occur there worthy of notice, it shall be the subject of 
my evening pen. 



240 LETTERS. 

Well, my dear niece, Ihave returned from Mr. Jefferson's. 
When I got there, I found a pretty large company. It con- 
sisted of the Marquis and Madame de la Fayette ; the 
Count and Countess de — ; a French Count, who had been 
a general in America, but whose name I forget ; Commo- 
dore Jones ; Mr. Jarvis, an American gentleman, lately 
arrived, the same who married Amelia Broom, who says 
there is so strong a likeness between your cousin and his 
lady, that he is obliged to be upon his guard, lest he should 
think himself at home, and make some mistake ; he appears 
a very sensible, agreeable gentleman ; a Mr. Bowdoin, an 
American also ; I ask the Chevalier de la Luzerne's pardon, 
— I had like to have forgotten him ; Mr. Williams, of course, 
as he always dines with Mr. Jefferson ; and Mr. Short ; 
though one of Mr. Jefferson's family, as he has been absent 
some time, I name him. He took a resolution that he would 
go into a French family at St. Germain, and acquire the 
language ; and this is the only way for a foreigner to obtain 
it. I have often wished that I could not hear a word of 
English spoken. I think I have mentioned Mr. Short before, 
in some of my letters ; he is about the stature of Mr. Tudor ; 
a better figure, but much like him in looks and manners ; 
consequently a favorite of mine. They have some customs 
very curious here. When company are invited to dine, if 
twenty gentlemen meet, they seldom or never sit down, but 
are standing or walking from one part of the room to the 
other, with their swords on, and their chapeau de bras, 
which is a very small silk hat, always worn under the arm. 
These they lay aside whilst they dine, but reassume them 
immediately after. I wonder how the fashion of standing 
crept in amongst a nation, who really deserve the appella- 
tion of polite ; for in winter it shuts out all the fire from the 
ladies ; I know I have suffered from it many times. At 
dinner, the ladies and gentlemen are mixed, and you con- 
verse with him who sits next you, rarely speaking to persons 
across the table, unless to ask if they will be served with 
any thing from your side. Conversation is never general, 
as with us ; for, when the company quit the table, they fall 



LETTERS. 241 

into tete-a-tete of two and two, when the conversation is in 
a low voice, and a stranger, unacquainted witli the customs 
of the country, would think that everybody had private 
business to transact. 

Last evening, as we returned, the weather being very 
soft and pleasant, I proposed to your uncle to stop at the 
Tuileries and walk m the garden, which we did for an hour ; 
there was, as usual, a collection of four or five thousand 
persons in the walks. This garden is the most celebrated 
public walk in Paris. It is situated just opposite to the river 
Seine, upon the left hand as you enter Paris from Auteuil. 
Upon Boston Neck, suppose that on one side flows the river 
Seine, and on the other hand is the garden of the Tuileries. 
There is a high wall next the street, upon which there is a 
I terrace, which is used as a winter walk. This garden has 
six large gates, by which you may enter. It is adorned 
with noble rows of trees, straight, large, and tall, which 
form a most beautiful shade. The populace are not per- 
mitted to walk in this garden but upon the day of Saint 
Louis, when they have it all to themselves. Upon one side 
of this garden is the castle of the Tuileries, which is an 
immense pile of building, very ancient. It is in one of 
these chateaus, that the concert spirituel is held. Upon the 
terrace which borders this chateau, are six statues and two 
vases. These vases are large, circular spots of water, 
which is conveyed there from the Seine by leaden pipes 
under ground. Round the great vase, which is in the midst 
of the parterre^ are four groups of white marble. One 
represents Lucretia ; the story, I know, is familiar to you. 
The Parisians do well to erect a statue to her, for at this 
day, there are many more Tarquins than Lucretias. She is 
represented as plunging the dagger into her bosom in pres- 
ence of her husband. There is another statue, — Anchises 
saved from the flames of Troy by his son -^neas, who is 
carrying him out upon his shoulders, leading Ascanius, his 
son, by his hand. The third is the rape of Orithyia, the 
daughter of Erectheus, King of Athens, by Boreas ; and 
the fourth, the ravishment of Cybele by Saturn ; the two 

16 



242 LETTERS. 

last very pretty ornaments for a public garden. At the end 
of the great alley fronting the largest water-piece, which is 
in the form of an octagon, are eight more marble statues. 
Upon the right is Hannibal, counting the rings which were 
taken from the knights who were killed in the battle of 
CannsB. Two Seasons, Spring and Winter, are upon the 
left hand, and a very beautiful figure of Scipio Africanus, 
near which are the two other Seasons, Summer and Au- 
tumn, and a statue of the Empress Agrippina. Over against 
these are four Rivers, colossal, represented sleeping, the 
Seine, the Loire, the Tiber, and the Nile. At the end of 
the two terraces, are two figures in marble, mounted upon 
winged horses ; one is Mercury, and the other Fame, who, 
as usual, is blowing a trumpet. In very hot weather, the 
alleys are watered ; under the trees are seats and chairs, 
which you may hire to sit in for a sou or two. There are 
many plots of grass interspersed. 

Thus, you see, I have scribbled you a long letter. I hope 
my description will please you. This is my eleventh letter, 
and I have yet several others to write ; so adieu, my dear 
Lucy, and believe me most affectionately yours, 

A. A. 



TO MRS. SHAW. 

Auteuil, 8 May, 17S5. 

MY DEAR SISTER, 

I DO not expect to date you any more letters from this place. 
Delightful and blooming garden, how much shall I regret 
your loss ! The fish-pond and the fountain are just put in 
order; the trees are in blossom, and the flowers are coming 
on in succession ; the forest trees are new clad in green, 
several beautiful rows of which form arched bowers at the 
bottom of our garden, the tops being cut so that they look 
like one continued plain ; their leaves and branches entwine, 
and shade you entirely from the rays of the sun. It will 



LETTERS. 243 

not be easy to find in the midst of a city so charming a 
scene. I shall quit it, however, with less reluctance, on 
account of my son's absence, which would be more irksome 
to me here, than in a country the language of which I shall 
be able to speak without an interpreter, or so much twisting 
and twirling of my tongue, and then pronouncing badly at 
last. I expect to be more scrutinized in England than here. 
" I said, I will take heed to my ways," is a text of holy writ 
fruitful of instruction in all situations of life, but it speaks more 
loudly to those who sustain public characters. 

It is so long since I heard from my American friends, that 
I begin to grow impatient. I had hopes that another year's 
wandering would have put an end to our pilgrimage. You 
can hardly form an idea how difficult and expensive it is to 
be house-keeping a few months at a time in so many differ- 
ent countries. It has been Mr. Adams's fortune, ever since 
he came abroad, not to live a year at a time in one place. 
At the Hague he has a house and furniture, but they could 
not be removed five hundred miles ; therefore it was neces- 
sary to hire a house and furniture here, to buy table linen, bed 
linen, china, glass, and plate. Here we have resided eight 
months, and now we must quit this for England. Removal 
in these countries is not so easy a matter as in ours ; for, 
however well you may pack up your things for the purpose, 
they must undergo so many scrutinies, besides paying heavy 
duties for passing from one country to another. Of this I 
can give you one instance, which happened a few moments 
ago. A gentleman in one of the provinces sent Mr. Adams 
a present of five bottles of wine which he wished recom- 
mended in America, and this was to serve as a sample. The 
duties, which we had to pay upon only those five bottles, 
mounted them up to three livres a-piece, and the real value 
of the wine might be nine or ten coppers a bottle ; be sure, 
not more. 

The injury which clothing sustains, in such long journeys 
upon paved roads is incredible. I fancy I never related to 
you a droll adventure which happened to me on my journey 
here. My friends advised me, when I came abroad, to take 



244 LETTERS. 

my money in crowns and dollars, as being the most advan- 
tageous for me ; but, when arrived, I found I could not part 
with them without much loss, so I concluded to take them 
with me to France. There were about two hundred, which 
I had put into a strong bag, and at the bottom of my travel- 
ling trunk they were placed, in the middle of which I had 
put a large band-box in which I had packed a very nice gauze 
bonnet, four caps, handkerchiefs, &c., (to the amount of 
about five guineas,) which I had made for me whilst I was 
in London. The third day of our journey, when I had occa- 
sion to open the trunk, I found a prodigious black dust upon 
the top. I directed it to be taken out, when O ! terrible to 
behold, " dust to dust, and ashes to ashes," nothing was left 
of all my rigging but a few black rags ; so that, when I got 
to Paris, I could not be seen until I had sent to the milliner's 
and bought a cap. You can carry nothing with any safety, 
but what is upon the top of the carriage. 

Affectionately yours, 

A. A. 



TO MISS E. C£ANCH. 

Auteuil, 8 May, 17S5. 

'Yes, my dear niece, it was a ceremony that one must study 
•some time to find out either pleasure or utility in it. I own, 
though I made one in the procession, I could not help feel- 
ing foolish, as I was parading first up one side of a wide 
road for a mile and a half, and then turning and following 
down a vast number of carriages upon the other, as slow as 
if I were attending a funeral. By this adjustment, you 
see, one row of carriages is constantly going up whilst the 
other is coming down, so that each cavalcade has a fair 
view of the other, and this is called going to Long Champs. 
About the third of February the Carnival begins. During 
this time there is great festivity among the Parisians : the 



II 



LETTERS. 245 

operas are more frequent ; and masked balls succeed them ; 
the theatres are crowded, and every place is gay. But upon 
the 27th of March, or the Sunday upon which the celebra- 
tion of the passion of our Saviour commences, the theatres 
are closed, and continue so during three weeks. Lent lasts 
six weeks, all of which is filled up with church ceremonies, 
one of which is the King's washing the feet of a dozen poor 
boys, and the Queen as many girls' ; after which, they give 
them a dinner in the palace, at which their majesties and 
the princesses of the blood attend them at table, the princes 
and lords carrying the plates. There is another ceremony, 
which is called the Day of Branches. The people go very 
early to mass, before daylight, and continue a long time at 
it ; after which the priests go forth, preceded by some 
church officer, wath a large picture of our Saviour, and an- 
other with a silver cross ; the people follow, two and two, 
men, women, and children, with branches in their hands, 
and books, chanting their prayers. They go to kneel and 
pray before the crucifix, one of which is placed upon the 
road in every village. There are three days, also, when 
a piece of the real and true cross, as they say, is show^n 
in the holy chapel of Paris, and every good Catholic kisses 
it. Then comes Holy Sunday, when everybody goes to 
church ; and, the night it begins, the clergy make a solemn 
procession into the halls of the palace at three o'clock in 
the morning ; and as nothing is performed here without the 
assistance of the military, the commandant of the watch 
sends two companies to escort this procession. But neither 
the concert spirituel, which is held three times a week in 
the Chateau des Tuileries, nor all the ceremonies of the 
church, can compensate to the sad Parisians for the absence 
of the plays. To fill up the time and vary the amusement, this 
parade at Long Champs was invented. It continues three 
days ; the place is about one mile from hence ; it is a fine 
plain, upon each side of which are rows of trees, like Ger- 
mantown woods. Here the Parisians appear with their 
superb equipage, drawn by six fleet coursers, their horses 
.and servants gaily dressed. All kinds of carriages, from 



246 LETTERS. 

the clumsy fiacre to the gilded chariot, are to be seen here, 
as well as many gentlemen on horseback, and swarms of 
people on foot. The city guards make no small part of 
the show, for the marechaussee, as they are called, are placed 
along in rows between the carriages, and are as despotic as 
their master : not a coach dares go an inch from its rank, 
nor one carriage force itself before another ; so that, not- 
withstanding there are many thousands collected upon 
this occasion, you see no disorder. But after all, it is a 
senseless, foolish parade, at which I believe I shall never 
again assist. 

Your cousin, who I hope will have the happiness to de- 
liver you this, will tell you so much about us, that less 
writing will be necessary for me than on many other occa- 
sions ; he cannot, however, say that I feel myself happier 
here than I used to do, at the humble cottage at the foot of 
the hill. I wish the dimensions of that was enlarged, because 
I see no prospect of a more convenient one, and I hope to 
rejoice there with my friends at some future day. I think I 
am not unlike the nun who used once a year to be permit- 
ted to make an excursion into the world : half the year she 
diverted herself by recounting the pleasures she had met 
with, and the other by those she expected. 

I shall have some regret, I assure you, in quitting Auteuil, 
since I must leave it for London, instead of America, that 
being the destination which Congress has assigned us. The 
trees in the garden are putting out their verdure, and the 
flowers springing into life : the song of the nightingale, too, 
regales me, as I walk under the trees whose thick branches 
intwined form a shade which screens you from the rays of 
the sun. I shall mourn my garden more than any other 
object which I leave. In many respects, I think I shall feel 
myself happier in London ; but that will depend much upon 
our reception there, and the course which politics take. If 
that is not agreeable we shall return so much the sooner to 
America. It is a long time since I had a line from you, 
and I believe I have brought you very deep in debt. I have 
sent you some flower seeds : you will not get them early 



LETTERS. 247 

enough for the present season, but plant and preserve them 
next year, that I may find them blooming when I return, 
and be so good as to give some of them to Mrs. Warren. 
Believe me, my dear girl, 

Most affectionately yours, 

A. A. 



TO MHS. CRANCH. 

Auteuil, 8 May, 1785. 

MY DEAR SISTER, 

Can my dear sister realize that it is near eleven months 
since I left her ? To me it seems incredible ; more like a 
dream than a reality. Yet it ought to appear the longest ten 
months of my life, if I were to measure the time by the vari- 
ety of objects which have occupied my attention ; but, 
amidst them all, my heart returns, like the dove of Noah, and 
rests only in my native land. I never thought myself so 
selfish a being as since I have become a traveller ; for, al- 1 
though I see nature around me in a much higher state of 
cultivation than our own country can boast, and elegance of • 
taste and manners in a thousand forms, I cannot feel inter- ' 
ested in them ; it is vain for me, that here 

"kind Nature wakes her genial power, 
Suckles each herb, and nurlui-es every tiower." 

'T is true the garden yields a rich profusion ; but they 
are neither plants of my hands, nor children of my care. 
I have bought a little bird lately, and I really think I feel 
more attached to that, than to any object out of my own fam- 
ily, animate or inanimate. Yet I do not consider myself in 
the predicament of a poor fellow, who, not having a house 
in which to put his head, took up his abode in the stable of 
a gentleman ; but, though so very poor, he kept a dog with 
whom he daily divided the small portion of food which he 



248 LETTERS. 

earned. Upon being asked why, when he found it so difficult 
to live himself, he still kept a dog ; " What," says the poor 
fellow, " part with my dog ! Why, whom should I have to 
love me then ?" You can never feel the force of this reply 
unless you were to go into a foreign country without being 
able to speak the language of it. I could not have believed, 
if I had not experienced it, how strong the love of country is 
in the human mind. Strangers from all parts of the country, 
who visit us, feel more nearly allied than the most intimate 
acquaintance I have in Europe. Before this will reach you, 
you will have learnt our destination to England. Whether 
it will prove a more agreeable situation than the present, will 
depend much upon the state of politics. We must first go 
to Holland to arrange our affairs there, and to take leave of 
that Court. I shall wish to be moving as soon as my family 
lessens, it will be so lonesome. We have as much company 
in a formal way as our revenues will admit ; and Mr. Jeffer- 
son, with one or two Americans, visits us in the social, friend- 
ly way. I shall really regret to leave Mr. .Tefferson ; he is 
one of the choice ones of the earth. On Thursday, I dined 
with him at his house. On Sunday, he is to dine here. On 
Monday, we all dine with the Marquis ; and on Thursday 
we dine with the Swedish Ambassador, one of the most 
agreeable men, and the politest gentleman I have met with. 
He lives like a prince. I know you love to know all my 
movements, which makes me so particular to you. 

I have many affairs upon me at present. What with my 
son's going away, my own adjustments for a final leave of 
this country, many things must pass through my hands ; but 
I am the less anxious to write, as your nephew will tell you 
all about us. You will think I ought to have written you 
more now ; but I am almost sick of my pen, and I know 
you will see what I write to others. I will not, however, 
close until the day before he quits the house. 



10 May. 
To-morrow morning my son takes his departure for 



LETTERS. 249 

America, and we go next week to England. I have nothing 
further to add, than my regards to Mr. Cranch, and a desire 
that you would let me hear from you by every opportunity. 
I shall lose part and the greatest part of American intelli- 
gence by quitting France ; for no person is so well informed 
from all the States as the Marquis de la Fayette. He has 
established a correspondence in all the States, and has the 
newspapers from every quarter. 

Adieu. 

A. A. 



TO MISS E. CRANCH. 

Aiiteuil, 10 Majr, 1785. 

Did you ever, my dear Betsey, see a person in real life — 
such as your imagination formed of Sir Charles Grandison ? 
The Baron de Stael, the Swedish Ambassador, comes near- 
est to that character, in his manners and personal appear- 
ance, of any gentleman I ever saw. The first time I saw 
him, I was prejudiced in his favor, for his countenance com- 
mands your good opinion : it is animated, intelligent, sensi- 
ble, affable, and, without being perfectly beautiful, is most per- 
fectly agreeable ; add to this a fine figure, and who can fail 
in being charmed with the Baron de Stael ? He lives in a 
grand hotel, and his suite of apartments, his furniture, and 
his table, are the most elegant of any thing I have seen. 

IAhhough you dine upon plate in every noble house in 
France, I cannot say that you may see your face in it ; but 
here the whole furniture of the table, was burnished, and 
shone with regal splendor. Seventy thousand livres in plate 
will make no small figure ; and that is what His Majesty 
gave him. The dessert was served on the richest china, 
with knives, forks, and spoons of gold. As you enter his 
apartments, you pass through files of servants, into his anti- 
chamber, in which is a throne covered with green velvet, 
-ipon which is a chair of state, over which hangs the picture 



250 LETTERS. 

of his royal master. These thrones are common to all am- 
bassadors of the first order, as they are the immediate rep- 
resentatives of the king. Through this anti-chamber, you 
pass into the grand saloon, which is elegantly adorned with 
architecture ; a beautiful lustre hanging from the middle. 
Settees, chairs, and hangings of the richest silk, embroi- 
dered with gold ; marble slabs upon fluted pillars, round 
which wreaths of artificial flowers in gold intwine. It is 
usual to find in all houses of fashion, as in this, several 
dozens of chairs, all of which have stuffed backs and 
cushions, standing in double rows round the rooms. The 
dining-room was equally beautiful, being hung with Gobelin 
tapestry, the colors and figures of which resemble the most 
elegant painting. In this room, were hair-bottom mahogany- 
backed chairs, and the first I have seen since I came to 
France. Two small statues of a Venus de Medicis, and a 
Venus de — (ask Miss Paine for the other name), were 
upon the mantelpiece. The latter, however, was the most 
modest of the kind, having something like a loose robe 
thrown partly over her. From the Swedish Ambassador's, 
we went to visit the Duchess d'Enville, who is mother to 
the Duke de Rochefoucault. We found the old lady sitting 
in an easy-chair ; around her sat a circle of Academicians, 
and by her side a young lady. Your uncle presented us, 
and the old lady rose, and, as usual, gave us a salute. As 
she had no paint, I could put up with it ; but when she ap- 
proached your cousin, I could think of nothing but Death 
taking hold of Hebe. The Duchess is near eighty, very 
tall and lean. She was dressed in a silk chemise, with 
very large sleeves, coming half way down her arm, a large 
cape, no stays, a black velvet girdle round her waist, some 
very rich lace in her chemise, round her neck, and in her 
sleeves ; but the lace was not sufficient to cover the upper 
part of her neck, which old Time had harrowed ; she had 
no cap on, but a little black gauze bonnet, which did not 
reach her ears, and tied under her chin; her venerable 
white hairs in full view. The dress of old women and 
young girls in this country is detestable^ to speak in the 



LETTERS. 251 

French style ; the latter, at the age of seven, being clothed 
exactly like a woman of twenty, and the former have such 
a fantastical appearance, that I cannot endure it. The old 
lady has all the vivacity of a young one. She is the most 
learned woman in France ; her house is the resort of all 
men of literature, with whom she converses upon the most 
abstruse subjects. She is of one of the most ancient, as 
well as the richest families in the kingdom. She asked 
very archly when Dr. Franklin was going to America. 
Upon being told, says she, " I have heard that he is a 
prophet there ; " alluding to that text of Scripture, " a 
prophet is not without honor," &c. It was her husband 
who commanded the fleet which once spread such terror in 
our country. 

Thus you have my yesterday's entertainment. The only 
pleasure which I shall feel to-day, is that which I have taken 
in writing to you this morning. I forgot to mention, that 
several persons of high rank dined with us yesterday ; but 
not one of them can claim a stroke of my pen after the 
Baron de Stael. Adieu, my dear Betsey ; your cousin 
leaves us in a few hours, and I will gratify myself in think- 
ing that he is going to his friends. May Heaven bless him, 
and prosper his voyage. 

Yours, affectionately, 

A. A. 



TO MRS. CRANCH. 
London, Bath Hotel, Westminster, 24 June, 1785. 

MY DEAR SISTER, 

I HAVE been here a month withont writing a single line to 
my American friends. About the 28th of May we reached 
London, and expected to have gone into our old quiet lodg- 
ings at the Adelphi ; but we found every hotel full. The 
sitting of Parliament, the birth-day of the King, and the fa- 
mous celebration of the music of Handel at Westminster 



252 LETTERS. 

Abbey had drawn together such a concourse of people, that 
we were glad to get into lodgings at the moderate price of a 
guinea per day, for two rooms and two chambers at the Bath 
Hotel, Westminster, Piccadilly, where we yet are. This 
being the Court end of the city, it is the resort of a vast 
concourse of carriages. It is too public and noisy for pleas- 
ure ; but necessity is without law. The ceremony of pre- 
sentation, upon one week to the King, and the next to the 
Queen, was to take place, after which I was to prepare for 
mine. It is customary, upon presentation, to receive visits 
from all the foreign ministers ; so that we could not ex- 
change our lodgings for more private ones, as we might and 
should, had we been only in a private character. The for- 
eign ministers and several English lords and earls, have 
paid their compliments here, and all hitherto is civil and 
polite. I was a fortnight, all the time I could get, looking 
at different houses, but could not find any one fit to inhabit 
under ^200, besides the taxes, which mount up to £50 or 
^60. At last, my good genius carried me to one in 
Grosvenor Square, which was not let, because the person 
who had the care of it could let it only for the remaining 
lease, which was one year and three quarters. The price, 
which is not quite .£200, the situation, and all together, in- 
duced us to close the bargain, and I have prevailed upon 
the person who lets it to paint two rooms, which will put it 
into decent order ; so that, as soon as our furniture comes, 
I shall again commence housekeeping. Living at a hotel 
is, I think, more expensive than housekeeping, in proportion 
to what one has for his money. We have never had more 
than two dishes at a time upon our table, and have not pre- 
tended to ask any company, and yet we live at a greater 
expense than twenty-five guineas per week. The wages of 
servants, horse-hire, house-rent, and provisions are much 
dearer here than in France. Servants of various sorts, and 
for different departments, are to be procured ; their charac- 
ters are to be inquired into, and this I take upon me, even 
to the coachman. You can hardly form an idea how much 
I miss my son on this, as well as on many other accounts ; 



LETTERS. 253 

but I cannot bear to trouble Mr. Adams with any thing of a 
domestic kind, who, from morning until evening, has suffi- 
cient to occupy all his time. You can have no idea of the 
petitions, letters, and private applications for assistance, 
which crowd our doors. Every person represents his case 
as dismal. Some may really be objects of compassion, and 
some we assist ; but one must have an inexhaustible purse 
to supply them all. Besides, there are so many gross im- 
positions practised, as we have found in more instances than 
one, that it would take the whole of a person's time to trace 
all their stories. Many pretend to have been American 
soldiers, some to have served as officers. A most glaring 
instance of falsehood, however. Colonel Smith ^ detected 
in a man of these pretensions, who sent to Mr. Adams from 
the King's Bench prison, and modestly desired five guineas ; 
a qualified cheat, but evidently a man of letters and abili- 
ties ; but, if it is to continue in this way, a galley slave 
would have an easier task. 

The Tory venom has begun to spit itself forth in the pub- 
lic papers, as I expected, bursting with envy that an Ameri- 
can Minister should be received here with the same marks of 
attention, politeness, and civility, which are shown to the 
ministers of any other power. When a minister delivers his 
credentials to the King, it is always in his private closet, at- 
tended only by the Minister for foreign Affairs, which is called 
a private audience, and the minister presented makes some 
little address to his Majesty, and the same ceremony to the 
Queen, whose reply was in these words ; " Sir, I thank you 
for your civility to me and my family, and I am glad to see 
you in this country ;" then she very politely inquired whether 
he had got a house yet. The answer of his Majesty was 
much longer ; but I am not at liberty to say more respecting 
it, than that it was civil and polite, and that his Majesty said 
he was glad the choice of his country had fallen upon him. 
The news-liars know nothing of the matter ; they represent 
^ it just to answer their purpose. Last Thursday, Colonel 

" * This gentleman was, by Congress appointed Secretary of Legation to 
Mr. Adams upon tliis mission ; and, not long after, married liis daughter. 



254 LETTERS. 

Smith was presented at Court, and to-morrow, at the Queen's 
circle, my ladyship and your niece make our compliments. 
There is no other presentation in Europe, in which I should 
feel so much as in this. Your own reflections will easily 
suggest the reasons. 

I have received a very friendly and polite visit from the 
Countess of Effingham. She called, and not finding me at 
home, left a card. I returned her visit ; but was obliged to 
do it by leaving my card too, as she was gone out of town ; 
but, when her Ladyship returned, she sent her compliments 
and word, that if agreeable she would take a dish of tea 
with me, and named her day. She accordingly came, and 
appeared a very polite, sensible woman. She is about 
forty, a good person, though a little masculine, elegant in 
her appearance, very easy and social. The Earl of Effing- 
ham is too well remembered ^ by America to need any par- 
ticular recital of his character. His mother is first lady to 
the Queen. When her Ladyship took leave, she desired I 
would let her know the day I would favor her with a visit, 
as she should be loth to be absent. She resides, in summer, 
a little distance from town. The Earl is a member of Par- 
liament, which obliges him now to be in town, and she 
usually comes with him, and resides at a hotel a little dis- 
tance from this. 

I find a good many ladies belonging to the Southern 
States here, many of whom have visited me ; I have ex- 
changed visits with several, yet neither of us have met. 
The custom is, however, here much more agreeable than in 
France, for it is as with us ; the stranger is first visited. 

The ceremony of presentation here is considered as indis- 
pensable. There are four minister-plenipotentiaries' ladies 
here ; but one ambassador, and he has no lady. In France, 
the ladies of ambassadors only are presented. One is 
obliged here to attend the circles of the Queen, which are 
held in summer once a fortnight, but once a week the rest 

1 On account of his resigning his commission in the British army, rather 
than serve against America. See his letter in " The Remembrancer," for 
1775, p. 263. . 



LETTERS. 255 

of the year ; and what renders it exceedingly expensive is, 
that you cannot go twice the same season in the same dress, 
and a Court dress you cannot make use of anywhere else. 
I directed my mantuamaker to let my dress be elegant, but 
plain as I could possibly appear, with decency ; accordingly, 
it is white lutestring, covered and full trimmed with white 
crape, festooned with lilac ribbon and mock point lace, 
over a hoop of enormous extent ; there is only a narrow 
train of about three yards in length to the gown waist, which 
is put into a ribbon upon the left side, the Queen only hav- 
ing her train borne. Ruffle cuffs for married ladies, treble 
lace ruffles, a very dress cap with long lace lappets, two 
white plumes, and a blonde lace handkerchief. This is my 
rigging. I should have mentioned two pearl pins in my 
hair, ear-rings and necklace of the same kind. 

Thursday Morning-. 

My head is dressed for St. James's, and in my opinion, 
looks very tasty. Whilst my daughter's is undergoing thci 
same operation, I set myself down composedly to write youl 
a few lines. " Well," methinks I hear Betsey and Lucy 
say, " what is cousin's dress ? " White, my dear girls,, 
like your aunt's, only differently trimmed and ornamented ; 
her train being wholly of white crape, and trimmed with i 
white ribbon ; the petticoat, which is the most showy part 
of the dress, covered and drawn up in what are called fes- 
toons, with light wreaths of beautiful flowers ; the sleevesi 
white crape, drawn over the silk, with a row of lace round 
the sleeve near the shoulder, another half way down the i 
arm, and a third upon the top of the ruffle, a little flower 
stuck between ; a kind of hat-cap, with three large feathers i 
and a bunch of flowers ; a wreath of flowers upon the hair. 
Thus equipped, we go in our own carriage, and Mr. Adams 
and Colonel Smith in his. But I must quit my pen to put 
myself in order for the ceremony, which begins at two 
o'clock. When I return, I will relate to you my reception ; 
but do not let it circulate, as there may be persons eager to 



I 



256 LETTERS. 

catch at every thing, and as much given to misrepresenta- 
tion as here. I would gladly be excused the ceremony. 

Friday Morning. 

Congratulate me, my dear sister, it is over. I was too 
much fatigued to write a line last evening, ^t two o'clock 
we went to the circle, which is in the drawing-room of the 
Queen. We passed through several apartments, lined as 
usual with spectators upon these occasions. Upon entering 
the ante-chamber, the Baron de Lynden, the Dutch Minis- 
ter, who has been often here, came and spoke with me. A 
Count Sarsfield, a French nobleman, with whom I was ac- 
quainted, paid his compliments. As I passed into the draw- 
ing-room, Lord Carmarthen and Sir Clement Cotterel Dor- 
mer were presented to me. Though they had been several 
times here, I had never seen them before. The Swedish 
and the Polish ministers made their compliments, and seve- 
ral other gentlemen ; but not a single lady did I know until 
the Countess of EfRngham came, who was very civil. 
There were three young ladies, daughters of the Marquis 
of Lothian, who were to be presented at the same time, 
and two brides. We were placed in a circle round the 
drawing-room, which was very full, I believe two hundred 
persons present. Only think of the task ! The royal fam- 
ily have to go round to every person, and find small talk 
enough to speak to all of them, though they very prudently 
speak in a whisper, so that only the person who stands next 
you can hear what is said. The King enters the room, and 
goes round to the right ; the Queen and Princesses to the 
left. The lord in waiting presents you to the King ; and 
the lady in waiting does the same to her Majesty. The 
King is a personable man, but, my dear sister, he has a 
certain countenance, which you and I have often remarked ; 
a red face and white eyebrows. The Queen has a similar 
countenance, and the numerous royal family confirm the 
observation. Persons are not placed according to their 
rank in the drawing-room, but promiscuously ; and when 
the King comes in, he takes persons as they stand. When 



LETTERS. 257 

he came to me, Lord Onslow said, " Mrs. Adams ; " upon 
wliich I drew off my right-hand glove, and his Majesty 
saluted my left cheek; then asked me if 1 had taken a walk 
to-day. I could have told his Majesty that I had hcen all 
the morning preparing to wait upon him ; but I replied, 
'' No, Sire." " ^V'hy, do n't you love walking ? " says he. 
I answered, that I was rather indolent in that respect. He 
then bowed, and passed on. It was more than two hours 
after this before it came to my turn to be presented to the 
Queen. The circle was so large that the company were 
four hours standing. The Queen was evidently embarrassed 
when I was presented to her. I had disagreeable feelings 
too. She, however, said, " Mrs. Adams, have you got into 
your house ? Pray, how do you like the situation of it t " 
Whilst the Princess Royal looked compassionate, and asked 
me if I was not much fatigued ; and observed, that it was 
a very full drawing-room. Her sister, who came next, 
Princess Augusta, after having asked your niece if she was 
ever in England before, and her answering " Yes," inquired 
of me how long ago, and supposed it was when she was 
very young. And all this is said with much affability, and 
the ease and freedom of old acquaintance. The manner, 
in which they make their tour round the room is, first, the 
Queen, the lady in waituig behind her, holding up her train ; 
next to her, the Princess Royal ; after her, Princess Augusta, 
and their lady in waiting behind them. They are pretty, 
rather than beautiful, well shaped, with fair complexions, 
and a tincture of the King's countenance. The two sisters 
look much alike ; they were both dressed in black and silver 
silk, with a silver netting upon the coat, and their heads full 
of diamond pins. The Queen was in purple and silver. 
She is not well shaped nor handsome. As to the ladies of 
the Court, rank and title may compensate for want of per- 
sonal charms ; but they are, in general, very plain, ill- 
shaped, and ugly ; but don't you tell anybody that I say so. 
If one wants to see beauty, one must go to Ranelagh ; there 
it is collected, in one bright donstellation. There were two 
ladies very elegant, at Court, — Lady Salisbury and Lady 

17 



258 LETTERS. 

Talbot ; but the observation did not in general hold good, 
that fine feathers make fine birds. I saw many who were 
vastly richer dressed than your friends, but I will venture to 
say, that I saw none neater or more elegant ; which praise 
I ascribe to the taste of Mrs. Temple and my mantuamaker ; 
for, after having declared that I would not have any foil or 
tinsel about me, they fixed upon the dress I have described. 
Mrs. Temple is my near neighbour, and has been very 
friendly to me. Mr. Temple, you know, is deaf, so that I 
cannot hold much conversation with him. 

The Tories are very free with their compliments. Scarcely 
a paper escapes without some scurrility. We bear it with 
silent contempt ; having met a polite reception from the 
Court, it bites them like a serpent, and stings them like an 
adder. As to the success the negotiations may meet with, 
time alone can disclose the result ; but, if this nation does 
not suffer itself to be again duped by the artifice of some 
and the malice of others, it will unite itself with America 
on the most liberal principles and sentiments. 

Captain Dashwood come ? Why, I have not half done. 
I have not told your aunt yet, that, whilst I was writing, 1 
received her thrice-w^elcome letters, and from my dear 
cousins too, aunt Shaw and all ; nor how sometimes I 
laughed, and sometimes I cried. Yet there was nothing 
sorrowful in the letters, only they were too tender for me. 
What, not time to say I will write to all of them as soon as 
possible } Why, I know they will all think I ought to 
write ; but how is it possible .? Let them think what I have 
had to do, and what I have had to accomplish, as my furni- 
ture is come, and will be landed to-morrow. Eat the sweet- 
meats. Divide them amongst you, and the choicest sweet- 
meat of all I shall have in thinking that you enjoy them. 

I went last evening, to Ranelagh ; but I must reserve that 
story for the young folk. You see I am in haste. 
Believe me most tenderly yours, 

A. A. 



LETTERS. 259 



TO MRS. SHAW. 
London, (Grosvenor Square,) 15 August, 1785. 

MY DEAR SISTEE, 

I HAVE been situated here for nearly six weeks. It is one 
of the finest squares in London. The air is as pure as it 
can be so near a great city. It is but a small distance from 
Hyde Park, round which I sometimes walk, but oftener ride. 
It resembles Boston Common, n:iuch larger, and more beau- 
tified with trees. On one side of it is a fine river. St. 
James's Park and Kensington Gardens are two other fash- 
ionable walks, which I am very sensible I ought to improve 
oftener than I do. One wants society in these places. Mrs. 
Temple is the only person near me with whom I can use 
the freedom of calling upon her to ride or walk with me, 
and her, to my no small regret, I am going to lose. Mrs. 
Hay resides out at Hampstead, about four miles from Lon- 
don. We visit, but they have such a paltry custom of 
dining here at night, that it ruins that true American socia- 
bility which only I delight in. Polite circles are much alike 
throughout Europe. Swift's " Journal of a Modern Lady," 
though written sixty years ago, is perfectly applicable to 
the present day ; and, though noted as the changeable sex, 
in this scene of dissipation they have been steady. I shall 
' never have much society with this kind of people, for they 
would not like me any more than I do them. They think 
much more of their titles here than in France. It is not 
anusual to find people of the highest rank there, the best 
bred and the politest people. If they have an equal share 
Df pride, they know better how to hide it. Until I came 
lere, I had no idea what a national and illiberal inveteracy 
he English have against their better behaved neighbours, 
ind I feel a much greater partiality for them than I did 
vhilst I resided among them. I would recommend to this 
lation a little more liberality and discernment ; their con- 
racted sentiments lead them to despise all other nations. 



260 LETTERS. 

Perhaps I should be chargeable with the same narrow sen- 
timents, if I give America the preference over these old 
European mtions. In the cultivation of the arts and im- 
provement in manufactures, they greatly excel us ; but we 
have native genius, capacity, and ingenuity, equal to all 
their improvements, and much more general knowledge 
diffused amongst us. You can scarcely form an idea how 
much superior our common people, as they are termed, are 
to those of the same rank in this country. Neither have 
we that servility of manners, which the distinction between 
nobility and citizens gives, to the people of this country. 
We tremble not, either at the sight or name of majesty. I 
own that I never felt myself in a more contemptible situa- 
tion, than when I stood four hours together for a gracious 
smile from majesty, a witness to the anxious solicitude of 
those around me for the same mighty boon. I however had 
a more dignified honor, as his Majesty deigned to salute me. 
1 have not been since \o the drawing-room, but propose 
going to the next. As the company are chiefly out of town, 
the ceremony will not be so tedious. 

As to politics, the English continue to publish the most 
abusive, barefaced falsehoods against America that you can 
conceive of; yet, glaring as they are, they gain credit here, , 
and they shut their eyes against a friendly and liberal inter- ■ 
course. Yet their very existence depends upon a friendly ' 
union with us. How the pulse of the ministry beats, time 
will unfold ; but I do not promise or wish to myself a long; 
continuance here. Such is the temper of the two nations 
towards each other, that, if we have not peace, we must 
have war. We cannot resign the intercourse, and quit 
each other. I hope, however, that it will not come to that 
alternative. Adieu. 

Your sister, 

A. A« 



LETTERS. 261 



TO MISS LUCY CRANCH. 

Loudon, (Grosveiior Squai-e,) 27 August, 1780. 

MY DEAR LUCY, 

I HAVE not yet noticed your obliging favor of April 26tb, 
which reached me by Captain Lyde, whilst I was at the 
Bath Hotel. I had then so much upon my hands, that I did 
not get time to write but to your mamma and cousin, who 
I hope is with you before now. By him I wrote many let- 
ters, and amongst the number of my friends, my dear Lucy 
was not omitted. 

If I did not believe my friends were partial to all I write, 
I should sometimes feel discouraged when I take my pen ; 
for, amongst so large a number of correspondents, I feel at 
a loss how to supply them all. 

It is usual at a large entertainment, to bring the solid food 
in the first course. The second consists of lighter diet, 
kickshaws, trifles, whip syllabub, &c. ; the third is the des- 
sert, consisting of the fruits of the season, and sometimes 
foreign sweetmeats. If it would not be paying my letters 
too great a compliment to compare any of them to solid 
food, I should feel no reluctance at keeping up the meta- 
phor with respect to the rest. Yet it is not the studied sen- 
tence nor the elaborate period, which pleases, but the 
genuine sentiments of the heart expressed with simplicity. 
All the specimens, which have been handed down to us as 
models for letter-writing, teach us that natural ease is the 
greatest beauty of it. It is that native simplicity too, which 
gives to the Scotch songs a merit superior to all others. 
My favorite Scotch song, " There 's na luck about the 
house," will naturally occur to your mind. 

I believe Richardson has done more towards embellishing 
the present age, and teaching them the talent of letter- 
writing, than any other modern I can name. You know I 
am passionately fond of all his works, even to his " Pamela." 
In the simplicity of our manners, we judg^ that many of 



262 LETTERS. 

his descriptions and some of his characters are beyond real 
life ; but those, who have been conversant in these old cor- 
rupted countries, will be soon convinced that Richardson 
painted only the truth in his abandoned characters ; and 
nothing beyond what human nature is capable of attaining, 
and frequently has risen to, in his amiable portraits. Rich- 
ardson was master of the human heart ; he studied and 
copied nature ; he has shown the odiousness of vice, and 
the fatal consequences which result from the practice of it ; 
he has painted virtue in all her amiable attitudes ; he never 
loses sight of religion, but points his characters to a future 
state of restitution as the sure ground of safety to the vir- 
tuous, and excludes not hope from the wretched penitent. 
The oftener I have read his books, and the more I reflect 
upon his great variety of characters, perfectly well sup- 
ported, the more I am led to love and admire the author. 
He must have an abandoned, wicked, and depraved heart, 
who can be tempted to vice by the perusal of Richardson's 
works. Indeed, I know not how a person can read them 
without being made better by them, as they dispose the 
mind to receive and relish every good and benevolent prin- 
ciple. He may have faults, but they are so few, that they 
ought not to be named in the brilliant clusters of beauties 
which ornament his works. The human mind is an active 
principle, always in search of some gratification ; and those 
writings which tend to elevate it to the contemplation of 
truth and virtue, and to teach it that it is capable of rising 
to higher degrees of excellence than the mere gratification 
of sensual appetites and passions, contribute to promote its 
mental pleasures, and to advance the dignity of our natures. 
Sir Joshua Reynolds's observations with respect to painting 
may be applied to all those works which tend to refine the 
taste, " which, if it does not lead directly to purity of man- 
ners, obviates, at least, their greatest depravation, by disen- 
tangling the mind from appetite, and conducting the thoughts 
through successive stages of excellence, till that contempla- 
tion of universal rectitude and harmony, which, began by 
taste, may, as it is exalted and refined, conclude in virtue." 



I 



LETTERS. 263 

Why may we not suppose, that, the higher our attahiments 
in knowledge and virtue are here on earth, the more nearly 
we assimilate ourselves to that order of beinj^s whonowrank 
above us in the world of spirits ? We are told in scripture, 
that there are different kinds of glory, and that one star differ- 
€th from another. Why should not those who have distin- 
guished themselves by superior excellence over their fellow- 
mortals continue to preserve their rank when admitted to the 
kingdom of the just? Though the estimation of worth may 
be very different in the view of the righteous Judge of the 
world from that which vain man esteems such on earth, yet 
we may rest assured that justice will be strictly administered 
to us. 

But whither has my imagination wandered ? Very dis- 
tant from my thoughts when I first took my pen. 

We have a large company to dine with us to-day, and I 
have some few arrangements to make before dinner, which 
obliges me to hasten to a conclusion ; among the persons in- 
vited, is a gentleman who married the only daughter of Rich- 
ardson. She died about six months ag-o. This o;entleman 
has in his possession the only portrait of her father which 
was ever taken. He has several times invited me to go to 
his house and see it. I design it, though I have not yet ac- 
cepted his invitation. 

Write to me, my dear Lucy, and be assured I speak the 
words of truth and soberness when I tell you that your letters 
give real pleasure to 

Your affectionate aunt, 

A. A. 



MY DEAR BETSEY, 



TO MISS E. CRANCH. 
London, (Grosvenor Square,) 2 September, 17S5. 



At the Bath Hotel I received my dear niece's letter of April. 
I have told your sister and other friends why I did not write 



264 LETTERS. 

them, but I should have no excuse to give if I omitted so good 
an opportunity as now offers by Mr. Storer. 

This day, two months ago, we removed here, where I 
should be much delighted, if I could have my sisters, my 
cousins and connexions around me ; but for want of them 
every country I reside in, lacks a principal ingredient in the 
composition of my happiness. 

London, in the Summer season, is a mere desert ; nobody 
of consequence resides in it, unless necessitated to by 
business. I think the gentry quite right in every view to 
retire to their country seats ; residing upon them is generally 
a great benefit to the proprietor. Many noblemen expend 
vast sums, annually, in improving and beautifying their es- 
tates. 1 am told that one must visit some of these manors 
and lordships to form a just estimate of British grandeur and 
magnificence. All the villages that I have seen round Lon- 
don are mere gardens, and show what may be effected by 
culture ; but we must not expect for many years to see 
America thus improved. Our numbers are few in compar- 
ison with our acres, and property is more equally distributed, 
which is one great reason of our happiness. Industry there 
is sure to meet with its recompense and to preserve the 
labourer from famine, from nakedness and from want. The 
liberal reward which labour meets with in America, is 
another source of our national prosperity ; population and 
increasing wealth result from it. The condition of our la- 
bouring poor is preferable to that of any other country. 
Comparatively speaking we have no poor, except those who 
are publicly supported. America is in her early vigour, in 
that progressive state, which in reality is the cheerful and 
flourishing state to all the different orders of society ; it is so 
to the human constitution, for when once it has reached the 
meridian, it declines towards the setting sun. But America 
has much to do ere she arrives at her zenith ; she possesses 
every requisite to render her the happiest country upon the 
globe. She has the knowledge and experience of past ages 
before her ; she was not planted like most other countries by 
lawless banditti, or an ignorant, savage race who cannot 



LETTERS. 265 

even trace their origin, but by an enlightened, a rehgious 
and polished people. The numerous improvements they 
have made during a century and a half, in what was then 
but a howling wilderness, prove their state of civilization. 
Let me recommend to you, my dear girl, to make yourself 
perfect mistress of the history of your own country, if you 
are not so already. No one can be sufficiently thankful for 
the blessings he enjoys, unless he knows the value of them. 
Were you to be a witness to the spectacles of wretchedness 
and misery which these old countries exhibit, crowded with 
inhabitants, loaded with taxes, you would shudder at the 
sight. I never set my foot out, without encountering many 
objects whose tattered parti-colored garments, hide not half 
their nakedness, and speak, asOtway expresses it, " variety of 
wretchedness" : covered with disease and starving with hun- 
ger they beg, with horror in their countenances. Besides 
these, what can be said of the wretched victims who are 
weekly sacrificed upon the gallows in numbers sufficient to 
astonish a civilized people ? I have been credibly informed 
that hundreds of children from four years and upwards, sleep 
under the trees, fences and hedges of Hyde Park nightly, 
having nowhere else to lay their heads ; and they subsist by 
day upon the charity of the passengers. Yet has this country 
as many public institutions for charitable support of the infirm, 
as any country can boast ; but there must be some essential 
defect in the government and morals of a people, when pun- 
ishments lose their efficacy and crimes abound. But I shall 
make you sick with my picture of wretchedness. Let it ex- 
cite us to thankfulness, my dear girl, that our lines have 
fallen to us in a happier land, a land of liberty and virtue, 
comparatively speaking, and let every one, so far as his 
sphere of action extends, and none so contracted as to be 
without some influence, let every one consider it as a duty 
which he owes to himself, to his country, and to pos- 
terity, to practise virtue, to cultivate knowledge and to 
revere the Deity, as the only means by which not only indi- 
viduals but a people or a nation can be prosperous and 
happy. You will think that I have turned preacher ; I know 



266 LETTERS. 

I am not writing to a thoughtless, but to a reflecting, solid 
young lady, and that shall be my excuse. 

How have j'^ou advanced in your music ? The practice 
of music to those who have a taste and ear for it, must be 
one of the most agreeable amusements ; it tends to soften 
and harmonize the passions, to elevate the mind, to raise it 
from earth to heaven. The most powerful effect of music 
lever experienced, was at Westminster Abbey. The place 
itself is well calculated to excite solemnity, not only from its 
ancient and venerable appearance, but from the dignified 
dust, marble and monuments which it contains. Last year 
it was filled up with seats, and an organ loft sufficiently large 
to contain six hundred musicians, which were collected from 
this and other countries. This year the music was repeated. 
It is called the celebration of Handel's music ; the sums col- 
lected are deposited, and the income is appropriated to the 
support of decayed musicians. There were five days set 
apart for the different performances. I was at the piece 
called the Messiah, and though a guinea a ticket, I am sure I 
never spent one with more satisfaction. It is impossible to 
describe to you the solemnity and dignity of the scene ; when 
it came to that part, the Hallelujah, the whole assembly rose 
and all the musicians, every person uncovered. Only con- 
ceive six hundred voices and instruments perfectly chording 
in one word and one sound. I could scarcely believe my- 
self an inhabitant of earth. I was one continued shudder 
from the beginning to the end of the performance. Nine 
thousand pounds were collected, by which you may judge of 
the rage that prevailed for the entertainment. 

How do all my good friends and old neighbours ? Let 
me hear as often as possible from you ; never conceive that 
your letters are trifling. Nothing which relates to those I 
love appears so to me. This letter is to go by Mr. Storer, as 
I told you in the beginning, a smart youth for some of you, 
and what is better, a virtuous and good young man. We are 
sorry to part with him, for he is quite domesticated with us; 
but we hope he will be benefited by the exchange ; it is time 
for him to be some way fixed in a profession for life. He 



LETTERS. 267 

thinks of Divinity ; and now I am talking of Divinity, I will 
inquire after my friend Mr. Wibird, and chide you all for nev- 
er mentioning him, fori have seen him twenty times, since my 
absence, come up your yard and enter the house, and inquire, 
(after having thrown aside his cloak) " Well, have you heard 
from your Aunt ? What does she say and how do they all ?" 
I hope you have seen your cousin before this time, and in 
your next you must tell me how you like him. You must 
cure him of some foibles which he has ; he will take it kindly 
of you, for he is a good youth, only a little too positive. My 
paper only allows me to say that I am yours, 

A. A. 



TO JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 
London, (Grosvenor Square.) 6 September, 1785. 

NY DEAR SON, 

Yesterday being Sunday, I went with your father to the 
Foundling Church, Dr. Price, whom we usually attend, 
being absent a few weeks in the country. When 1 returned 
from church, I went into my closet and took up my pen, 
with an intention of writing to you ; but I really felt so iriste 
at not having heard of your arrival, that I could not com- 
pose myself sufficiently to write to you ; so I scribbled to 
your brothers. By the time I had finished my letters, I 
was called to tea. Mr. Brown, the painter, came in and 
spent part of the evening. I read a sermon in Barrow upon 
the government of the tongue, and went to bed with one of 
my old impressions, that letters were near at hand. 

This morning went below to breakfast ; the urn was 
brought up boiling ; the chocolate ready upon the table ; 
enter Mr. Spiller, the butler, who, by the way, is a very 
spruce body, and after very respectfully bowing with his 
hands full, — "Mr. Church's compliments to you, Sir, and 
has brought you this packet, but could not wait upon you 
to-day, as he was obliged to go out of town." Up we all 



268 LETTERS. 

jumped ; your sister seized hold of a letter, and cried, " My 
brother, my brother ! " We were not long opening and 
perusing, and " I am so glad," and " I am so glad," was 
repeated from one to another. Mamma did not fail remark- 
ing her old impression. The chocolate grew cold, the top 
of the tea-pot was forgotten, and the bread and butter went 
down uneaten. Yet nobody felt the loss of breakfast. So 
near akin are joy and grief, that the effect is often similar. 

Our countrymen have most essentially injured themselves 
by running here in shoals after the peace, and obtaining a 
credit which they cannot support. They have so shackled 
and hampered themselves, that they cannot extricate them- 
selves. Merchants, who have given credit, are now suffer- 
ing, and that naturally creates ill-will and hard words. 
His Majesty and the ministry show every personal respect 
and civility which we have any right to expect. The Mar- 
quis de la Fayette writes, that he had always heard his 
Majesty was a great dissembler, but he never was so thor- 
oughly convinced of it as by the reception given to the 
American Minister. I wish their conduct with regard to 
our country was of a piece with that which they have shown 
to its representative. The Marquis of Carmarthen and Mr. 
Pitt appear to possess the most liberal ideas with respect to 
us, of any part of the ministry. With regard to the negroes, 
they are full and clear that they ought to be paid for ; but, 
as to the posts, they say the relinquishment of them must 
depend upon certain other matters, which you know they 
were not ^.t liberty to explain in private conversation ; but 
it is no doubt they mean to keep them as a security for the 
payment of the debts, and as a rod over our heads. They 
think we are as little able to go to war as they are. The 
budget has not yet been officially opened. A generous 
treaty has been tendered them, upon which they are now 
pondering and brewing. The fate of the Irish propositions 
has thrown weight into the American scale ; but there are 
so many bones of contention between us, that snarling spir- 
its will foment into rage, and cool ones kindle by repeated 
irritation. It is astonishing that this nation catch at every 



LETTERS. 269 

straw which swims, and delude themselves with the bubble 
that we are weary of our independence, and wish to return 
under their government again. They are more actuated by 
these ideas in their whole system toward us, than by any 
generous plans, which would become them as able states- 
men and a great nation. They think to effect their plans 
by prohibitory acts and heavy duties. A late act has passed, 
prohibiting the exportation of any tools of any kind. They 
say they can injure us much more than we can them, and 
they seem determined to try the experiment. Those who 
look beyond the present moment, foresee the consequences, 
that this nation will never leave us until they drive us into 
power and greatness that will finally shake this kingdom. 
VVe must struggle hard first, and find many difficulties to 
encounter, but we may be a great and a powerful nation if 
we will. Industry and frugality, wisdom and virtue, must 
make us so. I think America is taking steps towards a 
reform, and I know her capable of whatever she undertakes. 
I hope you will never lose sight of her interests ; but make 
her welfare your study, and spend those hours, which others 
devote to cards and folly, in investigating the great princi- 
ples by which nations have risen to glory and eminence ; 
for your country will one day call for your services, either 
in the cabinet or field. Qualify yourself to do honor to her. 
You will probably hear, before this reaches you, of the 
extraordinary affair respecting the Cardinal Rohan. It is 
said that his confinement is in consequence of his making 
use of the Queen's name to get a diamond necklace of 
immense value into his hands. Others say it is in conse- 
quence of some reflections cast upon the character of the 
Queen ; others suppose that the real fact is not known. I 
send you one newspaper account of the matter, and have 
not room to add more than that I am 

Your affectionate mother, 

A. A. 



270 LETTERS. 



TO MRS. CRANCH. 

London, 30 September, 1785. 

MY DEAR SISTER, 

Your kind letters of July and August are before me. I 
thank you most sincerely for the particular manner in which 
you write. I go along with you, and take an interest in 
every transaction which concerns those I love ; and I enjoy 
more pleasure from those imaginary scenes than I do from 
the drawing-room at St. James's. In one, I feel myself 
your friend and equal. In the other, I know I am looked 
down upon with a sovereign pride, and the smile of royalty 
is bestowed as a mighty boon. As such, however, I cannot 
receive it. I know it is due to my country, and I consider 
myself as complimenting the power before which I appear 
as much as I am complimented by being noticed by it. 
With these ideas, you may be sure my countenance will 
never wear that suppliant appearance, which begs for no- 
tice. Consequently I never expect to be a Court favorite. 
Nor would I ever again* set my foot there, if the etiquette 
of my country did not require it. But, whilst I am in a 
public character, I must submit to the penalty ; for such 
I shall ever esteem it. 

You will naturally suppose that I have lately been much 
fatigued. This is very true. I attended the drawing-room 
last week, upon the anniversary of the coronation of their 
Majesties. The company were very brilliant, and her 
Majesty was stiff with diamonds ; the three eldest Princesses 
and the Prince of Wales were present. His Highness 
looked much better than when I saw him before. He is a 
stout, well-made man, and would look very well if he had 
not sacrificed so much to Bacchus. The Princess Elizabeth 
I never saw before. She is about fifteen ; a short, clumsy 
miss, and would not be thought handsome if she was not a 
princess. The whole family have one complexion, and all 
are inclined to be corpulent. I should know them in any 



LETTERS. 271 

part of the world. Notwithstanding the English boast so 
much of their beauties, I do not think they have really so 
much of it as you will find amongst the same proportion of 
people in America. It is true, that their complexions are 
undoubtedly fairer than the French, and in general their 
figure is good. Of this they make the best ; but I have not 
seen a lady in England who can bear a comparison with 
Mrs. Bingham, Mrs. Piatt, and a Miss Hamilton, who is a 
Philadelphia young lady. Amongst the most celebrated of 
their beauties stands the Dutchess of Devonshire, who is 
masculine in her appearance. Lady Salisbury is small and 
genteel, but her complexion is bad ; and Lady Talbot is not 
a Mrs. Bingham, who, taken altogether, is the finest woman 
I ever saw. The intelligence of her countenance, or rather, 
I ought to say animation, the elegance of her form, and the 
affability of her manners, convert you into admiration ; and 
one has only to lament too much dissipation and frivolity of 
amusement, which have weaned her from her native coun- 
try, and given her a passion and thirst after all the luxuries 
of Europe. 

The finest English woman I have seen is the eldest 
daughter of Mr. Dana, brother to our Mr. Dana ; he resides 
in the country, but was in London with two of his daughters, 
when I first came here. I saw her first at Ranelagh. I 
was struck with her appearance, and endeavoured to find 
who she was ; for she appeared like Calypso amongst her 
nymphs, delicate and modest. She was easily known from 
the crowd, as a stranger. I had not long admired her, be- 
fore she was brought by her father and introduced to me, 
after which she made me a visit, with her sister, who was 
much out of health. At the same time that she has the 
best title of any English woman I have seen to the rank of 
a divinity, I" would not have it forgotten that her father is 
an American, and, as he was remarkably handsome, no 
doubt she owes a large share of her beauty to him. 

I dread to hear from my dear aunt, lest melancholy 
tidings should reach me with respect to her. She is at the 
same critical period of life which proved fatal to Mrs. B. 



272 LETTERS. 

I will, however, hope that she may yet be spared to her 
friends. Though her health would never permit her to en- 
gage in the active business of her family, she was attentive 
to the interest and welfare of every individual of it. Like 
Sarah, she was always to be found in her teht.\ A more 
benevolent heart never inhabited a human breast. It was 
well matched and seconded in a partner equally benevolent 
and humane, who has shared with us our former griefs, and 
will find us equally sympathetic towards himself, should so 
great a misfortune attend him as I fear. Indeed, I know 
not how to take my pen to write to him. I do not wonder 
that your heart was affected, or your spirits low, under the 
apprehension of losing one so deservedly dear to us all. 
Should this ornament be broken from the original buildinsr, 
it will be another memento to us of the frailty of the whole, 
and that duration depends not upon age. Yet who would 
desire to stand, the last naked pillar of the whole ? I be- 
lieve our social affections strengthen by age ; as those 
objects and amusements which gratified our youthful years 
lose their relish, the social converse and society of friends 
becomes more necessary. 

" Needful auxiliars are our friends, to give 
To social man true relish of himself."' 

But I must close, as I am going to dine to-day with my 
friend Mrs. Rogers, where I have given myself an invitation, 
the occasion of which I will reserve for the subject of an- 
other letter, and subscribe myself affectionately yours, 

A. A. 



TO MRS. CRANCH. 

London, 1 October, 1785. 

MY DEAR SISTER, 

I TOLD you in my last, that I was going to dine with my 
friend Mrs. Rogers. You must know that yesterday the 



LETTERS. 273 

whole diplomatic corps dined here ; that is, his Lordship 
the Marquis of Carmarthen, and all the foreign ministers, 
fifteen in all, and to-day the newspapers proclaim it. I be- 
lieve they have as many spies here as the police of France. 
Upon these occasions, no ladies are admitted ; so I wrote 
a card and begged a dinner, for myself and daughter, of 
]\}rs. Rogers, where I know I am always welcome. 

It is customary to send out cards of invitation ten days 
beforehand. Our cards were gone out, and as good luck 
would have it. Captain Hay returned from the West Indies 
and presented us with a noble turtle, weighing a hundred 
and fourteen pounds, which was dressed upon this occasion. 
Though it gave us a good deal of pain to receive so valu- 
able a present from them, yet we could not refuse it with- 
out affronting them, and it certainly happened at a most 
fortunate time. On Tuesday, they and a number of our 
American friends, and some of our English friends, for I 
assure jou we have a chosen few of that number, are to 
dine with us. 

This afternoon I have had a visit from Madame Pinto, 
the lady of the Portuguese minister. They have all visited 
now, and I have returned their visits ; but this is the only 
lady that I have seen. She speaks English tolerably, and 
appears an agreeable woman. She has lately returned to 
this country, from whence she has been five years absent. 
The Chevalier de Pinto has been minister here for many 
years. Some years hence it may be a pleasure to reside 
here in the character of American minister ; but, with the 
present salary and the present temper of the English, no 
one need envy the embassy. There would- soon be fine 
work, if any notice was taken of their Billingsgate and 
abuse ; but all their arrows rebound, and fall harmless to 
the ground. Amidst all their falsehoods, they have never 
insinuated a lisp against the private character of the Ameri- 
can minister, nor in his public line charged him with either 
want of abilities, honor, or integrity. The whole venom 
has been levelled against poor America ; and every eftbrt 
to make her appear ridiculous in the eyes of the nation. 

18 



274 LETTERS. 

How would they exult, if they could lay hold of any cir- 
cumstance, in either of our characters, to make us appear 
ridiculous. 

I received a letter to-day from Mr. Jefferson, who writes 
me that he had just received a parcel of English newspa- 
pers ; they " teem," says he, " with every horror of which 
nature is capable ; assassinations, suicide, thefts, robberies, 
and, what is worse than thefts, murder, and robbery, the 
blackest slanders ! Indeed, the man must be of rock who 
can stand all this. To Mr. Adams it will be but one vic- 
tory the more. It would illy suit me. I do not love diffi- 
culties. I am fond of quiet ; willing to do my duty ; but 
irritable by slander, and apt to be forced by it to abandon 
my post. I fancy," says he, " it must be the quantity of 
animal food eaten by the English, which renders their cha- 
racter unsusceptible of civilization. I suspect that it is in 
their kitchens, and not in their churches, that their reforma- 
tion must be worked, and that missionaries from hence 
would avail more than those who should endeavour to tame 
them by precepts of religion or philosophy." 

But he adds, " What do the foolish printers of America 
mean by retailing all this stuff in our papers, as if it was 
not enough to be slandered by one's enemies, without cir- 
culating the slanders amongst one's friends too.'* " 

I could tell Mr. Jefferson that I doubt not there are persons 
in America equally gratified with them as the English, and 
that from a spirit of envy. But these open attacks are no- 
thing to the secret enemies Mr. Adams has had to encoun- 
ter. In Mr. Jefferson he has a firm and faithful friend with 
whom he can consult and advise ; and, as each of them 
has no object but the good of his country in view, they have 
an unlimited confidence in each other ; and they have only 
to lament that the Channel divides their more frequent inter- 
course. 

You ask me whether I must tarry out three years. Heav- 
en only knows what may be the result of one. If any pro- 
bability appears of accomplishing any thing, 't is likely we 
may tarry. I am sure that it will be a labor, if not of love, 



v" 



LETTERS. 275 

yet of much perplexity and difficulty. The immense debt, 
due from the mercantile part of America to this country, 
sours this people beyond measure, and greatly distresses 
thousands, who never were nor ever will be politicians, — 
the manufacturers, — who supplied the merchants, and de- 
pend upon them for remittances. Indeed, I pity their situa- 
tion. At the same time, 1 think our countrymen greatly to 
blame for getting a credit, that many of them have taken no 
pains to preserve, but have thoughtlessly rioted upon the 
property of others. 

And this, among other things, makes our situation disa- 
greeable, and the path very difficult for negotiation. 
Adieu. Yours affectionately, 

A. A. 



TO MRS. SHAW. 

London, 4 March, 17S6. 

MY DEAR SISTER, 

I SELDOM feel a sufficient stimulus for writing until I hear 
that a vessel is just about to sail, and then I find myself so 
deep in debt, that I know not where to begin to discharge 
the account ; but it is time for me to be a little more provi- 
dent ; for, upon looking into my list, I find I have no less than 
eighteen correspondents, who have demands upon me. On^ 
needs to have a more fruitful fund than I am possessed of, to 
pay half these in sterling bullion. I fear many will find too 
great a quantity of alloy to be pleased with the traffic. 

I think, in one of my letters to you last autumn, I pro- 
mised to give you some account of the celebrated actress, 
Mrs. Siddons, whom I was then going to see. You may well 
suppose my expectations were very high ; but her circum- 
stances were such then as prevented her from exerting that 
force of passion, and that energy of action, which have render- 
ed her so justly celebrated You will suppose that 

she ought not to have appeared at all upon the stage. I 



276 LETTERS. 

should have thought so too, if I had not seen her ; but she had 
contrived her dress in such a manner as wholly to disguise 
her situation ; and chose only those tragedies where little 
exertion was necessary. The first piece I saw her in was 
Shakspeare's " Othello." She was interesting beyond any 
actress I had ever seen ; but I lost much of the pleasure of 
the play, from the sooty appearance of the Moor. Perhaps 
it may be early prejudice ; but I could not separate the Afri- 
can color from the man, nor prevent that disgust and horror 
which filled my mind every time I saw him touch the gentle 
Desdemona ; nor did I wonder that Brabantio thought some 
love potion or some witchcraft had been practised to make 
his daughter fall in love with what she scarcely dared to look 
upon. 

I have been more pleased with her since, in several other 
characters, particularly in Matilda in " The Carmelite," a 
play which I send you for your amusement. Much of 
Shakspeare's language is so uncouth that it sounds very harsh. 
He has beauties which are not equalled ; but I should suppose 
they might be rendered much more agreeable for the stage by 
alterations. I saw Mrs. Siddons a few evenings ago in " Mac- 
beth," a play, you recollect, full of horror. She supported 
her part with great propriety ; but she is too great to be put 
in so detestable a character. I have not yet seen her in her 
most pathetic characters, which are Jane Shore, Belvidera 
in " Venice Preserved," and Isabella in " The Fatal Mar- 
riage." For you must make as much interest here to get a 
box when she plays, as to get a place at Court ; and they are 
usually obtained in the same way. It would be very difficult 
to find the thing in this country which money will not pur- 
chase, provided you can bribe high enough. 

What adds much to the merit of Mrs. Siddons, is her vir- 
tuous character ; slander itself never having slurred it. She 
is married to a man who bears a good character; but his 
name and importance are wholly swallowed up in her fame. 
She is the mother of five children ; but from her looks you 
would not imagine her more than twenty-five years old. She 
is happy in having a brother who is one of the best tragic 



LETTERS. 277 

actors upon the stage, and always plays the capital parts 
Math her ; so that both her husband and the virtuous part of 
the audience can see them in the tenderest scenes without 
once fearing for their reputation. I scribble to you upon 
these subjects, yet fear they do not give you the pleasure I 
wish to communicate ; for it is with the stage as with Yorick's 
" Sentimental Journey," — no persons can have an equal 
relish for it with those who have been in the very places de- 
scribed. 

I can, however, inform you of something which will be 
more interesting to you, because it is the work of one of our 
own countrymen, and of one of the most important events of 
the late war. Mr. Trumbull has made a painting of the bat- 
tle at Charlestown, and the death of General Warren. To 
speak of its merit I can only say that in looking at it my 
whole frame contracted, my blood shivered, and I felt a 
faintness at my heart. He is the first painter who has un- 
dertaken to immortalize by his pencil those great actions, that 
gave birth to our nation. By this means he will not only 
secure his own fame, but transmit to posterity characters and 
actions which will command the admiration of future ages, 
and prevent the period which gave birth to them from ever 
passing away into the dark abyss of time. At the same time, 
he teaches mankind that it is not rank, nor titles, but charac- 
ter alone, which interests posterity. Yet, notwithstanding 
the pencil of a Trumbull and the historic pen of a Gordon 
and others, many of the component parts of the great whole 
will finally be lost. Instances of patience, perseverance, 
fortitude, magnanimity, courage, humanity, and tenderness, 
which would have graced the Roman character, are known 
only to those who were themselves the actors, and whose 
modesty will not suffer them to blazon abroad their own fame. 
These, however, will be engraven by Yorick's recording 
angel upon unfading tablets, in that repository, where a just 
estimate will be made both of principles and actions. 

Your letters of September and January I have received 
with much pleasure, and am happy to find that the partial- 
ity of a parent with regard to a very dear son, had not les- 



278 LETTERS. 

sened him in the eyes of his friends ; for praises are often 
so many inquisitors, and always a tax where they are lav- 
ished. I think I may with justice say, that a due sense of 
moral obligation, integrity and honor, are the predominant 
traits of his character ; and these are good foundations, 
upon which one may reasonably build hopes of future use- 
fulness. The longer I live in the world, and the more I 
see of mankind, the more deeply I am impressed with the 
importance and necessity of good principles and virtuous 
examples being placed before youth, in the most amiable 
and engaging manner, whilst the mind is uncontaminated, 
and open to impressions. Yet precept without example is 
of little avail, for habits of the mind are produced by the 
exertion of inward practical principles. The " soul's calm 
sunshine " can result only from the practice of virtue, which 
is congenial to our natures. If happiness is not the imme- 
diate consequence of virtue, as some devotees to pleasure 
affirm, yet they will find that virtue is the indispensable 
condition of happiness ; and, as the poet expresses it, 

" Peace, O Virtue ! peace is all thy own." 

But I will quit this subject, lest my good brother shouk 
think I have invaded his province, and subscribe myself 

Your sister, 

A. A. 



TO MISS E. CEANCH. 

London, 2 April, 1786. 

MY DEAR rOECE, 

I THINK, my dear Betsey, that some letter of yours must have 
failed, as I have none of a later date than that which you 
sent from Haverhill by Mr. Wilson, by which I find that 
you are studying music with Miss White. This is an ac- 
complishment much in vogue in this country, and I know of 
no other civilized country that stands in so much need of 



LETTERS. 279 

harmonizing as this. That ancient hospitality for which it 
was once so celebrated, seems to have degenerated into 
mere ceremony ; they have exchanged their humanity for 
ferocity, and their civility for — for — fill up the blank; you 
cannot give it too rough a name. 

I believe I once promised to give you an account of that 
kind of visiting called a ladies' rout. There are two kinds ; 
one where a lady sets apart a particular day in the week to 
see company. These are held only five months in the year, 
it being quite out of fashion to be seen in London during 
the summer. When a lady returns from the country she 
goes round and leaves a card with all her acquaintance, and 
then sends them an invitation to attend her routs during the 
season. The other kind is where a lady sends to you for 
certain evenings, and the cards are always addressed 
in her own name, both to gentlemen and ladies. The 
rooms are all set open, and card-tables set in each room, 
the lady of the house receiving her company at the door of 
the drawing-room, where a set number of courtesies are 
given and received, with as much order as is necessary for 
a soldier who goes through the different evolutions of^ his 
exercise. The visiter then proceeds into the room without 
appearing to notice any other person, and takes her seat 
at the card table. 

'* Nor can the muse her aid impart, 
Unskilled in all the terms of art, 
Nor in harmonious nmnbers put 
The deal, the shuffle, and the cut; 
Go, Tom, and light the ladies up, 
It must be one before we sup." 

At these parties it is usual for each lady to play a rubber, 
as it is termed, when you must lose or win a few guineas. 
To give each a fair chance, the lady then rises and gives 
her seat to another set. It is no unusual thing to have your 
rooms so crowded that not more than half the company can 
sit at once, yet this is called society and polite life. They 
treat their company with coffee, tea, lemonade, orgeat and 
cake. I know of but one agreeable circumstance attending 



280 LETTERS. 

these parties, which is, that you may go away when you 
please without distiirbing anybody. I was early in the 
winter invited to Madame de Pinto's, the Portuguese minis- 
ter's. I went accordingly. There were about two hundred 
persons present. I knew not a single lady but by sight, 
having met them at Court ; and it is an established rule, 
that though you were to meet as often as three nights in 
the week, never to speak together, or know each other, 
unless particularly introduced, I was, however, at no loss 
for conversation, Madame de Pinto being very polite, and 
the Foreign Ministers being the most of them present, who 
had dined with us, and to whom I had been early introduced. 
It being Sunday evening, I declined playing cards ; indeed, 
I always get excused when I can. And Heaven forbid I should 

" catch the manners hving as they rise," 

Yet I must submit to a party or two of this kind. Having 
attended several, I must return the compliment in the same 
way. Yesterday we dined at Mrs. Paradice's. I refer you., 
to Mr. Storer for an account of this family, l Mr._ Jefferson, 
Colonel Smith, the Prussian and Venetian Ministers, were 
of the company, and several other persons who were stran- 
gers. At eight o'clock we returned home in order to dress 
ourselves for the ball at the French ambassador's, to which 
we had received an invitation a fortnight before. He has 
been absent ever since our arrival here, till three weeks ago. 
He has a levee every Sunday evening, at which there are 
usually several hundred persons. The Hotel de France is 
beautifully situated, fronting St, James's Park, one end of 
the house standing upon Hyde Park. It is a most superb 
building. About half past nine, we went and found some 
company collected. Many very brilliant ladies of the first 
distinction were present. The dancing commenced about 
ten, and the rooms soon filled. The room which he had 
built for this purpose is large enough for five or six hundred 
persons. It is most elegantly decorated, hung with a gold 
tissue, ornamented with twelve brilliant cut lustres, each 
containing twenty-four candles. At one end there are two 



LETTERS. 281 

large arches ; these were adorned with wreaths and bunches 
of artificial flowers upon the walls ; in the alcoves 
were cornucopia3 loaded with oranges, sweetmeats, &c. 
Coffee, tea, lemonade, orgeat, &c. were taken here by 
every person who chose to go for them. There were cov- 
ered seats all round the room for those who did not choose 
to dance. In the other rooms, card-tables, and a large faro- 
table, were set : this is a new kind of game, which is much 
practised here. Many of the company who did not dance, 
retired here to amuse themselves. The whole style of the 
house and furniture is such as becomes the ambassador 
from one of the first monarchies in Europe. He had twenty 
thousand guineas allowed him in the first instance to furnish 
his house, and an annual salary of ten thousand more. He 
has agreeably blended the magnificence and splendor of 
France with the neatness and elegance of England. Your 
cousin had unfortunately taken a cold a few days before, 
and was very unfit to go out. She appeared so unwell that 
about 07ie we retired without staying supper, the sight of 
which only I regretted, as it was in a style, no doubt, supe- 
rior to any thing I have seen. The Prince of Wales came 
about eleven o'clock. Mrs. Fitzherbert was also pfesent, 
but I could not distinguish her. But who is this lady ? me- 
thinks I hear you say. She is a lady to whom, against the 
laws of the realm, the Prince of Wales is privately married, 
as is universally believed. She appears with him in all 
public parties, and he avows his marriage wherever he 
dares. They have been the topic of conversation in all 
companies for a long time, and it is now said that a young 
George may be expected in the course of the summer. She 
was a widow of about thirty-two years of age, whom he a 
long time persecuted in order to get her upon his own terms ; 
but finding he could not succeed, he quieted her conscience 
by matrimony, which, however valid in the eye of Pleaven, 
is set aside by the laws of the land, which forbids a prince 
of the blood to marry a subject. As to dresses, I believe I 
must leave them to be described to your sister. I am sorry 
I have nothing better to send you than a sash and a vandyke 



282 LETTERS. 

ribbon. The narrow is to put round the edge of a hat, or 
you may trim whatever you please with it. I have enclosed 
for you a poem of Colonel Humphreys. Some parts you 
will find, perhaps, too high seasoned. If I had observed it 
before publication, I know he would have altered it. When 
you write again, tell me whether my fruit trees in the gar- 
den bear fruit, and whether you raised any flowers from 
the seeds I sent you. Oh ! I long to be with you again ; 
but, my dear girl, your cousin — must I leave her behind 
me ? Yes, it must be so ; but then I leave her in honor- 
able hands. Adieu. I have only room to say 

Your affectionate aunt, 

A. A. 



TO MISS LUCY CRANCH. 

London, 2 April, 1786. 

Your kind letter, my dear niece, was received with much 
pleasure. These tokens of love and regard which I know 
flow from the heart, always find their way to mine, and 
give me a satisfaction and pleasure beyond any thing which 
the ceremony and pomp of courts and kingdoms can afford. 
The social affections are and may be made the truest chan- 
nels for our pleasures and comforts to flow through. Hea- 
ven formed us not for ourselves but others, 

"And bade self-love and social be the same." 

Perhaps there is no country where there is a fuller exer- 
cise of those virtues than ours at present exhibits, which is 
in a great measure owing to the equal distribution of pro- 
perty, the small number of inhabitants in proportion to its 
territory, the equal distribution of justice to the poor as well 
as the rich, to a government founded in justice and exer- 
cised with impartiality, and to a religion which teaches 
peace and good will to man ; to knowledge and learning 



LETTERS. 283 

being so easily acquired and so universally distributed ; and 
to that sense of moral obligation which generally inclines 
our countrymen to do to others as they would that others 
should do to them. Perhaps you will think that I allow to 
them more than they deserve, but you will consider that I 
am only speaking comparatively. Human nature is much 
the same in all countries, but it is the government, the laws, 
and religion, which form the character of a nation. Wher- 
ever luxury abounds, there you will find corruption and de- 
generacy of manners. Wretches that we are, thus to misuse 
the bounties of Providence, to forget the hand that blesses 
us, and even deny the source from whence we derived our 
being. 

But I grow too serious. To amuse you then, my dear 
niece, I will give you an account of the dress of the ladies 
at the ball of the Comte d'Adhemar ; as your cousin tells 
me that she some time ago gave you a history of the birth- 
day and ball at Court, this may serve as a counterpart. 
Though, should I attempt to compare the apartments, St. 
James's would fall as much short of the French Ambassa- 
dor's, as the Court of his Britannic Majesty does of the 
splendor and magnificence of that of his Most Christian 
Majesty. I am sure I never saw an assembly room in 
America, which did not exceed that at St. James's in point 
of elegance and decoration ; and, as to its fair visiters, not 
all their blaze of diamonds, set off with Parisian rouge, can 
match the blooming health, the sparkling eye, and modest 
deportment of the dear girls of my native land. As to the 
dancing, the space they had to move in gave them no op- 
portunity to display the grace of a minuet, and the full 
dress of long court-trains and enormous hoops, you well 
know were not favorable for country dances, so that I saw 
1 them at every disadvantage ; not so the other evening. 
They were much more properly clad ; — silk waists, gauze 
or white or painted tiflany coats decorated with ribbon, 
beads or flowers, as fancy directed, were chiefly worn by 
the young ladies. Hats turned up at the sides with dia- 
mond loops and buttons of steel, large bows of ribbons and 



284 LETTERS. 

wreaths of flowers, displayed themselves to much advantage 
upon the heads of some of the prettiest girls England can 
boast. The lio;ht from the lustres is more favorable to 
beauty than daylight, and the color acquired by dancing, 
more becoming *than rouge, as fancy dresses are more fa- 
vorable to youth than the formality of a uniform. There 
was as great a variety of pretty dresses, borrowed wholly 
from France, as I have ever seen ; and amongst the rest, 
some with sapphire-blue satin waists, spangled with silver, 
and laced down the back and seams with silver stripes ; 
white satin petticoats trimmed with black and blue velvet 
ribbon; an odd kind of head-dress, which they term the 
" helmet of Minerva." I did not observe the bird of wis- 
dom, however, nor do I know whether those who wore the 
dress had suitable pretensions to it. " And pray," say you, 
" how were my aunt and cousin dressed ? " If it will 
gratify you to know, you shall hear. Your aunt, then, 
wore a full-dress court cap without the lappets, in which 

I was a wreath of white flowers, and blue sheafs, two black 
and blue flat feathers (which cost her half a guinea a-piece, 

j but that you need not tell of), three pearl pins, bought for 
Court, and a pair of pearl ear-rings, the cost of them — no 
matter what ; less than diamonds, however. A sapphire 
blue demi-saison with a satin stripe, sack and petticoat 
trimmed with a broad black lace ; crape flounce, &c. ; 

' leaves made of blue ribbon, and trimmed with white floss ; 
wreaths of black velvet ribbon spotted with steel beads, 

I which are much in fashion, and brought to such perfection 
as to resemble diamonds ; white ribbon also in the Vandyke 
style, made up of the trimming, which looked very elegant ; 
'a full dress handkerchief, and a bofiquet of roses. " Full 
gay, I think, for my aunt.'''' That is true, Lacy, but nobody 
is old in Europe. I was seated next the Duchess of Bed- 
ford, who had a scarlet satin sack and coat, with a cushion 
full of diamonds, for hair she has none, and is hut seventy- 
six^ neither. Well, now for j^our cousin ; a small, white 
Leghorn hat, bound with pink satin ribbon ; a steel buckle 
and band which turned up at the side, and confined a large 



LETTERS. 285 

pink bow ; large bow of the same kind of ribbon behind ; 
a wreath of full-blown roses round the crown, and another 
of buds and roses withinside the hat, which being placed at 
the back of the hair, brought the roses to the edge ; you 
see it clearly ; one red and black feather, with two white 
ones, completed the head-dress. A gown and coat of 
Chamberi gauze, with a red satin stripe over a pink waist, 
and coat flounced with crape, trimmed with broad point and 
pink ribbon; wreaths of roses across the coat; gauze sleeves 
and ruffles. But the poor girl was so sick with a cold, that she 
could not enjoy herself, and we retired about one o'clock 
without waiting supper, by which you have lost half a sheet 
of paper, I dare say ; but I cannot close without describing 
to you Lady North and her daughter. She is as large as 

Captain C 's wife, and much such a made woman, with 

a much fuller face, of the color and complexion of Mrs. 

C , who formerly lived with your uncle Palmer, and 

looks as if porter and beef stood no chance befoie her ; add 
to this, that it is covered with large red pimples, over which, 
to help the natural redness, a coat of rouge is spread ; and, 
to assist her shape, she was dressed in white satin, trimmed 
with scarlet ribbon. Miss North is not so large, nor quite 
so red, but has a very small eye with the most impudent 
face you can possibly form an idea of, joined to manners so 
masculine, that I was obliged frequently to recollect that 
line of Dr. Young's, 

" Believe her dress ; she 's not a grenadier," 

to persuade myself that I was not mistaken. 

Thus, my dear girl, you have an account which perhaps 
may amuse you a little. You must excuse my not copying ; 
I fear, now, 1 shall not get nearly all my letters ready, — my 
pen very bad, as you see ; and I am engaged three days this 
week, — to a rout at the Baroness de Nolken's, the Swedish 
minister's, to a ball on Thursday evening, and to a dinner on 
Saturday. Do not fear that your aunt will become dissipated, 
or in love with European manners ; but, as opportunity offers, 
I wish to see this European world in all its for?us that I can 



286 LETTERS. 



with decency. I still moralize with Yorick, or with one more 
experienced, and say " Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." 
Adieu, and beUeve me yours, 

A. Adams. 



MT DEAK SISTER, 



TO MRS. CRANCH. 

^London, 6 April, 1786. 



J- 



Although I was at a stupid rout at the Swedish minister's 
last evening, I got home about twelve, and rose early this 
morning to get a few things ready to send out by Lyde. 
When a body has attended one of these parties, you know 
the whole of the entertainment. There were about two 
hundred persons present last evening. Three large rooms 
full of card-tables ; the moment the ceremony of courtesying 
is past, the lady of the house asks you, " Pray, what is your 
game ; whist, cribbage, or commerce ?" And then the next 
thing is to hunt round the room for a set to make a party ; 
and, as the company are coming and going from eight till 
two in the morning, you may suppose that she has enough to 
employ her from room to room. The lady and her daughter 
last night were almost fatigued to death, for they had been out 
the night before till morning, and were toiling at pleasure for 
seven hours, in which time they scarcely sat down. I went 
with a determination not to play, but could not get off; so I 
was set down to a table with three perfect strangers, and the 
lady who was against me stated the game at half a guinea 
a-piece. I told her I thought it full high ; but I knew she 
designed to win, so I said no more, but expected to lose. It 
however happened otherwise. I won four games of her. I 
then paid for the cards, which is the custom here, and left 
her to attack others, which she did, at three other tables, 
where she amply made up her loss. In short, she was an 
old, experienced hand, and it was the luck of the cards rather 



LETTERS. 287 

than skill, though I have usually been fortunate, as it is 
termed ; but I never play when I can possibly avoid it, for I 
have not conquered the disagreeable feeling of receiving 
money for play. But such a set of gamblers as the ladies 
here are ! and such a life as they lead ! Good Heavens ! 
were reasonable beings made for this ? I will come and 
shelter myself in America from this scene of dissipation, and 
upbraid me whenever I introduce the like amongst you. Yet 
here you cannot live with any character or consequence, un- 
less you give in some measure into the ton. 

Mr. Adams is gone to accompany Mr. Jefferson into the 
country to some of the most celebrated gardens. This is the / 
first tour he has made since I first came abroad ; during ^ 
which time we have lived longer unseparated than we have 
ever done since we were married. i 

Adieu. Your sister, 

JTX. ia.. 



TO MKS. CRANCH. 

London, 21 Maj--, 1786. 

MY DEAR SISTER, 

I WISH I had one of my nieces v\'ith me whilst I remain in 
this country ; but it will not be long before I shall quit it. 
Not ten days ago I expected to have taken my passage in the 
July packet, in consequence of some intelligence which after- 
wards wore a different appearance ; things are so fluctuating 
upon both sides the water, that it is really difficult to draw up 
conclusions. Prussia has treated, Portugal has treated, and 
the Emperor's minister has just received powers to treat also ; 
but, very unfortunately, the joint commission of the Ameri- 
can ministers expired this month, so that nothing can be 
concluded until new powers arrive. Whoever has any thing 
to do with courts, must have patience for the first, second, 
and third requisites. I wish I was well out of the way of all 



288 'letters. 

of them. My object is to return to America early next 
spring, if nothing arises to oblige us to take this step sooner. 
I cannot think of a fall passage. Of this, I shall be better in- 
formed in a few weeks. But there is no office more undesira- 
ble than that of Minister of the United States ; under the pres- 
ent embarrassments, there is no reputation to be acquired, and 
there is much to lose. Negotiations with other powers may be 
and have been effected ; but with England there is not the 
least probability of a treaty, until the States are united in 
their measures, and invest Congress with full powers for 
the regulation of commerce. A minister here can be of 
very little service until that event takes place. It is true, 
he may be invested with other powers, and one, more im- 
portant than treating with this country, is, making peace 
with the Barbary States ; but as Mr. Adams foretold, so it 
has turned out. Lamb is returning without being able to 
effect any thing. The Dey would not even see him, and 
the demand for the poor fellows who are in captivity is a 
thousand dollars per man, and there are twenty-one of 
them. The sum allotted by Congress is so inadequate to 
the thing, that we must look only for war upon us. Unless 
Congress endeavour to borrow the sum demanded, and 
treat immediately, their demands will increase in proportion 
to the captures they make ; but of all this they are regu- 
larly and fully informed. You will not, however, make 
these matters known till you hear them from some other 
quarter. These are dull subjects for one lady to write to 
another upon; but our country is so much interested in 
these affairs, that you must excuse me for troubling you 
with them, and you can communicate with discretion. 

I thank you most sincerely for all your kindness to my 
dear sons, and hope they will ever bear a grateful remem- 
brance of it ; the account you give of their behaviour and 
conduct is such as I hope they merit. The idea that their j 
success in life depends upon their diligence and application 
to their studies, and a modest and virtuous deportment, can- 
not be too strongly impressed upon their minds. The fool- 
ish idea in which some of our youth are educated, of being. 






LETTERS. 289 

born gentlemen, is the most ridiculous in the world for a 
country like ours. It is the mind and manners which make 
the gentleman, and not the estate. There is no man with 
us so rich as to breed up a family in idleness, with ideas of 
paternal inheritance, and far distant may that day be from 
our land ; he who is not in some way or other useful to 
society, is a drone in the hive, and ought to be hunted down 
accordingly. I have very dilTerent ideas of the wealth of 
my countrymen from what I had when I left. Much of 
that wealth has proved fallacious, and their debts exceed 
their property. Economy and industry may retrieve their 
aflairs. I know that the country is capable of great exer- 
tions ; but, in order to this, they must curtail their ideas of 
luxury and refinement, according to their ability. I do not 
believe any country exceeds them in the article of dress. 
In houses, in furniture, in gardens and pleasure grounds, 
and in equipage, the wealth of France and England is dis- 
played to a high pitch of grandeur and magnificence ; but, 
when I reflect upon the thousands who -are starving, and 
the millions who are loaded with taxes to support this pomp 
and show, I look to my happier country with an enthusiastic 
* warmth, and pray for the continuance of that equality of 
rank and fortune which forms so large a portion of our 
happiness. 

I yesterday dined at the Bishop of Saint Asaph's, in com- 
pany with Dr. Priestley and Dr. Price and some strangers. 
The Bishop's character is well known and respected, as a 
friend to America, and justly does he deserve the character 
of a liberal man. He is polite, affable, and consequently 
agreeable. He has a lady and an unmarried daughter, 
both of whom are well-bred, according to my ideas ; ac- 
cording to British ideas, good breeding consists in an un- 
daunted air and a fearless, not to say bold, address and 
appearance. The old lady is .both sensible and learned, 
quite easy and social ; the young one is modest and atten- 
tive. This is a family, the friendship and acquaintance of 
which I should like to cultivate. 

Dr. Priestley is a gentleman of a pale complexion, spare 

19 



290 LETTERS. 

habit, placid, thoughtful countenance, and very few words. 
I heard him preach for Dr. Price. His delivery is not 
equal to the matter of his discourses. I dined twice in 
company with the Doctor, and was mortified that I could 
not have more of his company at our own house, but he 
was engaged every moment of his time whilst in London. 
I believe I have frequently mentioned Dr. Price ; he is a 
good and amiable man, a little inclined to lowness of spirits, 
which partly arises from the melancholy state of Mrs. Price, 
who two years ago had a paralytic stroke, and has been 
helpless ever since. 

Believe me yours affectionately, 

A. A. 



TO MES. WARREN. 

London, 24 May, 1786. 

MY DEAR BIADAM, 

The affliction under which you are now laboring has been 
protracted to a much longer period than I feared when I 
first left America. It was then I buried the dear and ami- 
able youth for whose loss your maternal bosom heaves the 
sad sigh, and over whose urn all who knew him must drop 
a tear of affectionate remembrance. 

" Long at his couch Death took his patient stand, 
And menaced oft, and oft withheld the blow, 
To give reflection time, with lenient art, 
Each fond delusion from his soul to steal ; 
Teach him from folly peaceably to part 
And wean him from a world he loved so well." 

Nor were the admonitions given in vain. The last visit 
which I made him I saw in his languid countenance the 
smile of complacent resignation to the will of Heaven. 

" Whatever farce the boastful hero plays, 
Virtue alone has majesty in death." 



LETTERS. 291 

Be this your consolation, that, though young in years, he 
was mature in virtue ; that he lived beloved, and died 
lamented ; and who that live to riper years can ensure 
more to themselves ? 

Let not the popular torrent, which at present sets against 
your worthy partner, distress you. Time will convince the 
world who are their approved and unshaken friends, what- 
ever mistaken judgments they at present form. I foresaw 
this when I so earnestly pressed the General to accept his last 
appointment, and attend Congress, if only for a few months. 
All that is well intended is not well received. The con- 1 
sciousnessof doing our duty is, however, a support ; but the ? 
designing jackdaw will sometimes borrow the plumes of the 
jay, and pass himself off to those who judge only by appear-y 
ances. 

You appear to think your friend at the height of prosper- 
ity, and swallowed up by the gaieties of Europe ; but the 
estimate is far from the truth. I am much less addicted to 
them than most of my fair countrywomen whom I have left 
behind me. I do not feel myself at all captivated either 
with the manners or politics of Europe. I think our own 
country much the happiest spot upon the globe, much as it 
needs reforming and amending. I should think it still hap- 
pier, if the inclination was more wanting than the ability to 
vie with the luxuries and extravagance of Europe. 

Be so good, my dear Madam, as to present my best 
respects to your worthy partner, and affectionate remem- 
brance to your sons, and be assured, I am at all times 

Your friend, 

Abigail Adams. 



TO MISS E. CRANCH. 



Loudon, IS July, 1786. 

I THANK you, my dear niece, for your last kind letter. 
There are no days in the year so agreeable to me, nor any 



I 



292 LETTERS. 

amusements this country can boast, so gratifying to my 
heart and mind, as those days which bring me letters from 
my dear friends ; in them I always find the law of kind- 
ness written, and they solace my mind in the separation. 
Could I, you ask, return to my rustic cottage, and view it 
with the same pleasure and satisfaction I once enjoyed in 
it ? I answer, I think I could ; provided I have the same 
kind friends and dear relatives to enhance its value to me. 
It is not the superb and magnificent house, nor the rich and 
costly furniture, that can insure either pleasure or happiness 
to the possessor, A convenient abode, suitable to the sta- j 
tion of the possessor, is no doubt desirable ; and to those " 
who can afford them, parks, gardens, or what in this coun- ^ 
try is called an ornamented farm, appear to me an inno-* 
cent and desirable object ; they are beautiful to the eye, 
pleasing to the fancy, and improving to the imagination ; but 
then as Pope observes, 

" 'T is use alone that sanctifies expense, 
And splendor borrows all her rays from sense." 

I have lately visited several of the celebrated ^ats within 
twenty miles of this city. Sion Place, Tilney House and j 
Park, Osterley and Pain's Hill. The last place is about 
twelve miles distant from London. I must describe it to 
you in the words of the poet : 

" Here wealth entlironed in nature's pride, 
With taste and beauty by her side, 

And holding- plenty's horn, 
Sends labour to pursue the toil, 
Art to improve the happy soil, 

And beauty to adorn." 

My dear niece will feel loth to believe that the owner of 
this beautiful spot, a particular account of which she will 
find in the book I send her, neither lives here, or scarcely 
looks upon it once a year. The former proprietor enjoyed 
it as the work of his own hands. Thirty-eight years ago 
he planted out all the trees, which are now one of its chief 
and principal ornaments ; but dying about three years ago, 






LETTERS. 293 

left it to a tasteless heir. The book I send you is written 
by a Mr. Whately ; he has treated the subject of gardening 
scientifically. I should have overlooked many of the orna- 
ments and beauties of the places I have seen, if I had not 
first perused this writer. Mr. Apthorp, I imagine, would 
be pleased in reading this book, and I wish you may derive 
as much entertainment from the perusal of it as it afforded 
me. 

I dare say your imagination will present you with many 
places in Braintree, capable of making, with much less 
cost than is expended here, ornamented farms. The late 
Colonel Quincy's, uncle Quincy's, Germantown, all of these 
nature has been more liberal to than most of the places here, 
which have cost the labor of successive generations, and 
many of them half a million of money. Improvement in 
agriculture is the very science for our country, and many 
times ornament and beauty may be happily made subser- 
vient to utility, but then, to quote Pope again, 

" Something there is more needful than expense, 
And sometliing- previous e'en to taste — 'tis sense." 

When you have read Whately, read Pope's fourth essay, 
addressed to the Earl of Burlington, and I think you will 
see beauties in it unobserved before. 

You might suspect me of partiality, if I was to say that 
nature shows herself in a style of greater magnificence and 
sublimity in America, than in any part of Europe which I 
have yet seen ; every thing is upon a grander scale ; our 
summer's heats and winter's colds, form a contrast of great 
beauty. Nature, arising from a temporary death, and burst- 
ing into life with a sudden vegetation, yields a delicious 
fragrance and verdure, which exhilarates the spirits and ex- 
cites the imagination, much more than the gradual and slow 
advance of spring in the more temperate climates ; and 
where the whole summer has not heat sufficient to sweeten 
the fruit, as is the case in this climate ; even our storms 
and tempests, our thunder and lightning, are horribly grand ; 
here nothing appears to leave the bounds of mediocrity, 



294 LETTERS. 

nothing is ferocious but man. But to return to your letter. 
You have found that you were too early in your conjectures 
respecting your cousin's marriage. She will write you her- 
self, and inform you that she has commenced housekeeping 
very soon after her marriage. It would add greatly to her 
happiness, judging her by myself, if she could welcome her 
American friends often within her mansion. Persons in the 
early stages of life, may form friendships, but age grows 
more wary, more circumspect, and a commerce with the 
world does not increase one's estimation of its inhabitants. 
There is no durable basis for friendship, but virtue, disin- 
terestedness, benevolence, and kindness. 

This is the season of the year in which London is a 
desert. Even fashion languishes ; I however enclose you 
a print of the bosom friends. When an object is to be 
ridiculed, 't is generally exaggerated ; the print, however, 
does not greatly exceed some of the mo^t fashionable dames. 
Pray, does the fashion of merry thoughts, bustles, and pro- 
tuherances prevail with you ? I really think the English 
more ridiculous than the French in this respect ; they import 
their fashions from them, but in order to give them the 
mode Anglaise, they divest them both of taste and ele- 
gance. Our fair countrywomen would do well to establish 
fashions of their own ; let modesty be the first ingredient, 
neatness the second, and economy the third, then they can- 
not fail of being lovely without the aid of Olympian dew 
or Parisian rouge. 

We have sent your cousins some books, amongst which 
is Rousseau upon Botany ; if you borrow it of them, it will 
entertain you ; and the world of flowers, of which you are 
now so fond, will appear to you a world of pleasing know- 
ledge. There is also Dr. Priestley upon Air, and Bishop 
Watson upon Chemistry, all of which are well worth the 
perusal of minds eager for knowledge and science, like my 
Eliza's and Lucy's. If they are not the amusements which 
females in general are fond of, it is because trifles are held 
up to them in a more important light, and no pains taken to 
initiate them in more rational amusements. Your papa, 



LETTERS. 295 

who is blest with a most happy talent of communicating 
knowledge, will find a pleasure in assisting you to compre- 
hend whatever you may wish explained ; a course of ex- 
periments would do more, but from these our sex are almost 
wholly excluded. 

Remember me affectionately to your brother, and to all 
my neighbours. Enclosed is a book upon Church Music, 
which, be so good as to present to Mr. Wibird, with my 
compliments ; it was published here in consequence of an 
application of Dr. Chauncy's church for an organ, of Mr. 
Brand-Hollis. Adieu, my dear niece, and believe me, 

Affectionately yours, 

A. Adams. 



TO MISS LUCY CRANCH. 

London, 20 July, 1786. 

MY DEAR NIECE, 

My fourth letter I begin to you. I dare not reckon the 
number I have to write ; lest I should feel discouraged in 
the attempt, I must circumscribe myself to half a sheet of 
paper. Raree-shows are so much the taste of this country, 
that they make one even of the corpse of great people ; 
and the other day a gentleman presented me with a card to 
go and see the corpse of the Duke of Northumberland, who 
died at his house in the country, but was brought here to be 
laid in state. " It is," said he, " a senseless piece of pa- 
geantry ; but, as such, I would advise you to see it." It is 
practised only with crowned heads, and some of the most 
ancient families of Dukes. The late Duke was father to 
Lord Percy, whom the Americans well remember. His 
Lordship (who lives a few doors from us), being the elder 
son, inherits the title and estate, and is now Duke of North- 
umberland. 

Northumberland House is in the city. A great, immense 
pile of building, to which one enters through massy iron gates. 



296 LETTERS. 

At these gates stood four porters, clad in black ; the court, a 
up to the house, was hung in black, and divided by a tempo- 
rary railing, that the spectators might pass in upon one side, 
and out upon the other. From the court we entered a long ^ 
suite of rooms, five in number, through rows of servants, one I 
each side of us, all sabled as well as the rooms. I never be- 
fore understood that line of Pope's, 

" When Hopkins dies, a thousand hghts attend." 

I believe there were two thousand here, for daylight was to- 
tally excluded. Upon the walls were as many escutcheons 
as candles. These are formed so as to place a light in each. 
These plates are all washed with silver ; being put upon the' 
black cloth and lighted in this manner, they gave the rooms 
a tomb-like appearance ; for in this manner are the tombs of 
the dead enlightened in Catholic countries, and it is not un- 
common for the great to leave a large sum of money for 
lights to be kept constantly burning. Through these rooms 
we moved, with a slow pace and a solemn silence, into that 
which contained the corpse. Here, upon a superb bed of 
state, surrounded with twenty-four wax lights upon enormous 
silver candlesticks, lay the remains of his Grace, as I pre- 
sume, but so buried amidst stars and garters, and the various 
insignia of the different offices he sustained, that he might as 
well have been at Sion House, for all that one could see of 
him ; for these ornaments are displayed like flags, 

" The George and garter danghng from the bed, 
Where gaudy yellow strove with flaming red." 

Upon the bolster lay the ducal coronet, and round the bed 
stood a dozen men in black, whom they call mutes. It was 
said that the corpse was clothed in a white satin tunic, and 
cap richly trimmed with blonde lace ; but for this I cannot 
vouch, though I do not think it more ridiculous than the other 
parts of the parade which I saw ; and this farce was kept up 
two days. The body was then deposited in Westminster 
Abbey, with as much parade and show as possible ; but be- 
ing out of town, I did not see it. 



LETTERS. 297 

We made an excursion as far as Portsmouth, which lies 
about seventy-five miles from London. I was much disap- 
j^ ointed in the appearance of the country, great part of it being 
0\ ;ly barren heath. Within eighteen miles of the town, it 
appears fruitful and highly cultivated. We spent only one 
d'ly at Portsmouth, but returned by another road, which 
1/rought us back through Windsor. Here we stopped a day 
J nd a half, and I was charmed and delighted with it. The 
/nost luxuriant fancy cannot exceed the beauties of this place. 
/l do not wonder that Pope styled it the seat of the muses. 
Read his " Windsor Forest," and give full credit to his most 
poetic flights. The road by which we entered the town was 
from the top of a very steep hill ; from this hill, a lawn pre- 
sents itself on each side. Before you, a broad, straight road, 
three miles in length ; upon each side a double plantation of 
lofty elms, lift their majestic heads, which is exceeded only 
by a view of the still grander forest, at a distance, which is 
thirty miles in circumference. From this hill you have a 
view of the Castle and the town. This place, as in former 
days, is the retreat of the monarch. The royal family reside 
here nine months of the year, not in the Castle, as that would 
require the attendance of ministers, &lc. The present Queen 
has a neat lodge here, close to the Castle ; and there is 
another, a few rods distant, for the Princesses. His Majesty 
is a visiter to the Queen, and the family reside here with as 
little parade as that of a private gentleman. It is the eti- 
quette, that none of his Majesty's ministers approach him 
upon business here. Despatches are sent by messengers, and 
answers returned in the same way. He holds his levees 
twice a week, in town. The Castle is one of the strongest 
places in Europe, as it is said, and a safe retreat for the fam- 
ily in case any more revolutions should shake this kingdom. 
It was first built by Edward the Third. Charles the Second 
kept his Court here during the summer months, and spared 
no expense to render it worthy the royal residence. He 
furnished it richly, and decorated it with paintings by the 
first masters. It is situated upon a high hill, which rises by 
a gentle ascent, and enjoys a most delightful prospect round 



298 LETTERS. 

it. In front is a wide and extensive vale, adorned with fields 
and meadows, with groves on either side, and the calm, 
smooth water of the Thames running through them. Behind 
it are hills, covered with fine forests, as if designed by nature 
for hunting. 

The terrace round the Castle is a noble walk, covered 
with fine gravel. It is raised on a steep declivity of a hill, 
and overlooks the whole town. Here the King and royal 
family walk on Sunday afternoons, in order to show them- 
selves to those of their subjects who choose to repair to 
Windsor for that purpose. In fine weather the terrace is 
generally thronged. From the top of this tower on the Cas- 
tle, they showed us thirteen difierent counties. To describe 
to you the apartments, the paintings and decorations within 
this Castle, would require a volume instead of a letter. I 
shall mention only two rooms ; and the first is that called the 
Queen's bed-chamber, where, upon the top of the ceiling, is 
painted the story of Diana and Endymion. The bed of state 
was put up by her Majesty ; the inside and counterpanes are 
of white satin, the curtains of pea green, richly embroidered 
by a Mrs. Wright, embroiderer to her Majesty. There is a 
full length picture of the Queen, with her fourteen children 
in miniature, in the same piece, taken by Mr. West. It is a 
very handsome likeness of her. The next room is called 
" the room of beauties" ; so named for the portraits of the 
most celebrated beauties in the reign of Charles the Second. 
They are fourteen in number. There is also Charles's 
Queen, a very handsome woman. The dress of many of 
them is in the style of the present day. Here is also Queen 
Caroline's china closet, filled with a great variety of curious 
china, elegantly disposed. 

I have come now to the bottom of the last page. If I 
have amused my dear niece, it will give great pleasure to 
her affectionate aunt, 

A. A. 



LETTERS. 299 



TO MISSES E. AND L. CRANCH. 

London, 23 July, 1786. 

MY DEAR GIRLS, 

I BOUGHT me a blue sarcenet coat not long since ; after* 
making it up I found it was hardly wide enough to wear over 
a straw coat, but I thought it was no matter ; I could send itf 
to one of my nieces. When I went to put it up, I thought, 
I wished I had another. " It is easily got, said I. Ned, 
bring the carriage to the door and drive me to Thornton's, the 
petticoat shop." " Here, Madam, is a very nice pink coat, 
made too of the widest sarcenet." " Well, put it up." So 
back I drove, and now, my dear girls, there is a coat for 
each of you. Settle between yourselves which shall have 
the blue and which the red, pay no regard to the direction,/ 
only when you put them on, remember your aunt wishes 
they were better for your sakes. 

Mr. Appleton and a Dr. Spooner go with the Callaghan ; 
they both dine here to-day, and I shall request one of them 
to put them in his trunk, and some black lace which I have 
bought for Mrs. Welsh. 

Remember me to my dear and aged mother. You will 
make her caps for her, I know, but if you will cut and send 
me a pattern, I will make some here and send her. She 
will be better pleased with them, I know. If there is any 
thing in particular which you want, tell me. I have not 
written above half the letters I want to, yet I have done lit- 
tle else for a whole week. By Captain Barnard I design 
writing to Miss B. Palmer and others, which I shall not have 
time to do now, because to-morrow morning I set out on my 
journey. If you and cousin Lucy will send me a shoe for a| 
pattern I will get you a pair of new-fashioned moroccoi 
I have not written a line yet, either to son Charles or Johnny. 
I have been to Flackney to hear Dr. Price to-day, upon the 
duties of children to parents ; it was an excellent discourse ; 



300 LETTERS. 

but you, my dear girls, so perfectly practise what he preached, 
that there is no occasion of repeating it to you. 

Adieu, and believe, your own parents excepted, nobody 
loves you better than your ever 

Affectionate aunt, 

A. A. 



TO MRS. CRANGH. 

London, 12 September. 1786. 

MY DEAR SISTER, 

I AM again safe arrived in this city, after an absence of five 
weeks. By the last vessels, I wrote some of my friends that 
I was going to visit Holland. That I had a desire to see 
that country you will not wonder at, as one of those theatres, 
upon which my partner and fellow-traveller had exhibited 
some of his most important actions, and rendered to his 
country lasting blessings. It has been the policy of some of 
our allies to keep, as much as possible, these events out of 
sight, and of some of our countrymen to lessen their value in 
the eyes of mankind. I have seen two Histories of the 
American war, written in French, and one lately published 
in English by a Mr. Andrews. In one of them, no notice 
is taken, or mention made, of our alliance with Holland, and 
the two others mention it as slightly as possible ; and our 
own countrymen set them the example. France, to be sure, 
was the first to acknowledge our independence, and to aid us 
with men and money, and ought always to be first ranked 
amongst our friends ; but Holland, surely, ought not to be 
totally neglected. From whence have we drawn our sup- 
plies for these five years past, even to pay to France the in- 
terest upon her loan, and where else could we now look in 
case of a pressing emergency .'' Yet have I observed, in 
sermons upon public occasions, in orations, &c., France is 
always mentioned with great esteem, Holland totally neglect- 
ed. This is neither policy nor justice. I have been led to 



LETTERS. 301 

a more particular reflection upon this subject, from my late 
visit to that country. The respect, attention, civility, and 
politeness, which we received from that people, wherever we 
went, was a striking proof, not dhly of their personal esteem, 
but of the ideas they entertain with respect to the revolution 
which gave birth to their connexion with us, and laid, as 
they say, the foundation for their restoration to privileges, 
which had been wrested from them, and which they were 
now exerting themselves to recover. The spirit of liberty 
appears to be all alive in them ; but whether they will be 
able to accomplish their views, without a scene of blood and 
carnage, is very doubtful. 

As to the country, I do not wonder that Swift gave it the 
name of " Nick Frog," though I do not carry the idea so 
far as some, who insist that the people resemble the frog in 
the shape of their faces and the form of their bodies. They 
appear to be a well-fed, well-clothed, contented, happy peo- 
ple. Very few objects of wretchedness present themselves 
to your view, even amidst the immense concourse of people 
in the city of Amsterdam. They have many public institu- 
tions which do honor to humanity, and to the particular di- 
rectors of them. The money allotted to benevolent pur- 
poses is applied solely to the benefit of the charities, instead 
of being wasted and expended in public dinners to the guar- 
dians of them, which is said to be the case too much in this 
country. The civil government, or police, must be well 
regulated, since rapine, murder, and robbery are very sel- 
dom found amongst them. 

The Exchange of Amsterdam is a great curiosity. As 
such, they carried me to see it. I was with Mr. Van Stap- 
horst ; and, though the crowd of people was immense, I 
met w^ith no difficulty in passing through, every person 
opening a passage for me. The Exchange is a large 
square, surrounded with a piazza. Here, from twelve till 
two o'clock, all and every person who has business of any 
kind to transact, meet, sure of finding the person they want ; 
and it is not unusual to see ten thousand persons collected 
at once. I was in a chamber above the Exchange ; the 



302 LETTERS. 

buzz from below was like the swarming of bees. The 
most important places which I visited, were Rotterdam, 
Delft, the Hague, Leyden, Haarlem, Amsterdam, and 
Utrecht. I went through mfciny other villages and towns ; 
the names I do not recollect. I was eight days at the 
Hague, and visited every village round it, amongst which is 
Scheveling, a place famous for the embarkation of King 
Charles. From Utrecht I visited Zest, a small town be- 
longing wholly to the Moravians, who maintain the same 
doctrines with the Moravians at Bethlehem, in Pennsyl- 
vania, but which are not the best calculated for fulfilling 
the great command of replenishing the earth. I visited 
Gouda, and saw the most celebrated paintings upon glass 
which are to be found. These were immense windows, 
reaching from the top to the bottom of a very high church, 
and containing Scripture history. Neither the faces nor 
attitudes had any thing striking ; but the colors, which had 
stood for near two hundred years, were beautiful beyond 
imagination. From Amsterdam, we made a party one day 
to Saardam, a few hours' sail only. It was their annual 
fair, and I had an opportunity of seeing the people in their 
holiday suits. This place is famous for being the abode of 
the Czar Peter, whose ship-carpenter's shop they still show. 
At every place of note, I visited the cabinets of paintings 
and natural history, and all the public buildings of distinc- 
tion, as well as the seats of several private gentlemen, and 
the Prince of Orange's house at the Hague, where he holds 
his court during the summer months ; but the difference, 
which subsists between him and the States, occasioned his 
retreat to Loo. Consequently I had no opportunity of being 
presented to that Court. We were invited to dine one day 
at Sir James Harris's, the British Minister at that Court, 
who appears a very sensible, agreeable man. Lady Harris, 
who is about twenty-four years old, may be ranked with 
the first of English beauties. She was married at seven- 
teen, and has four fine children ; but, though very pretty, 
her Ladyship has no dignity in her manners, nor solidity in 
her deportment. She rather seems of the good-humored, 



LETTERS. 303 

giggling class, — a mere trifler ; at least, I saw nothing to 
the contrary. I supped at the Marquis de Verac's, the 
French Ambassador's, with about fifty gentlemen and ladies. 
His own lady is dead. He has a daughter-in-law, who 
usually lives with him, but was now absent in France. 

Upon the whole, I was much gratified with my excursion 
to a country, which cannot show its like again. The whole 
appearance of it is that of a meadow. What are called 
the dikes, are the roads, which, being raised, separate the 
canals. Upon these you ride, through rows of willow trees 
upon each side. Not a hill to be seen. It is all a con- 
tinued plain, so that trees, meadows, and canals, canals, 
trees, and meadows, are the unvaried scene. The houses 
are all brick, and the streets are paved with brick. It is 
very unusual to see a single square of glass broken, or a 
brick out of place, even in the meanest house. They paint 
every piece of wood within and without their houses ; and, 
what I thought, not so wholesome, their milk-pails are 
painted, within and Without, and so are their horse-carts ; 
but it is upon a principle of economy. The country is ex- 
ceeding fruitful, and every house has a garden spot, plenti- 
fully stored with vegetables. The dress of all the country 
people is precisely the same that it was two hundred years 
ago, and has been handed down from generation to genera- 
tion unimpaired. You recollect the short petticoats, and 
long short-gowns, round-eared caps with straight borders, 
and large straw hats, which the German women wore when 
they first settled at Germantown. Such is now the dress of 
all the lower class of people, who do not even attempt to 
imitate the gentry. I was pleased with the trig neatness of 
the women ; ^many of them wear black tammy aprons, 
thick quilted coats, or russet skirts, and small hoops ; but 
only figure to yourself a child of three or four, dressed in 
the same way. They cut a figure, I assure you. Gold 
ear-rings are universally worn by them, and bracelets upon 
holidays. The dress of the men is full as old-fashioned ; 
but the Court and genteel people dress part English and 
part French. They generally speak both the languages, 



304 Otters. 

but French most. Since their intercourse with America, 
the English language is considered as an essential part of 
education. I would not omit to mention that I vished the' 
church at Leyden, in which our forefathers worshipped, 
when they fled from hierarchical tyranny and persecution. 
I felt a respect and veneration upon entering the doors, like 
what the ancients paid to their Druids. 

Upon my return home, I found that Captain Gushing had | 
arrived in my absence, and a noble packet was handed to " 
me by your niece soon after I arrived ; but, as we had not 
seen each other for five weeks, we had much to say ; and, 
in addition to that, I had not closed my eyes for two days 
and nights, having had a stormy, boisterous passage of three 
days, attended with no small danger ; and, as I had rode 
seventy-five miles that day, they all voted against my open- 
ing my letters that night. Mortifying as it was, I submitted, 
being almost light-headed with want of rest, and fatigue. 
But I rose early the next morning and read them all before 
breakfast ; and here let me thank my dear sister for the 
entertainment hers afforded me ; but, like most of the 
scenes of life, the pleasure was mixed with pain. The 
account of the death of our dear and worthy aunt reached 
me in a letter from cousin W. Smith, the week before I 
went my journey. Although I took a final leave of her 
when I quitted America, yet I have been willing to flatter 
myself with the hope that T might be mistaken, and that 
her life would be prolonged beyond my expectations. How 
often has her image appeared to my mind in the same form 
in which she addressed me when I left her house. You 
know how susceptible her heart was to every tender im- 
pression. She saw how much I was distressed, and strove 
herself for a magnanimity that gave to her whole appear- 
ance a placid solemnity which spoke more forcibly than 
words. There was a something indescribable, which to me 
seemed angelic, in her whole manner and appearance, that 
most powerfully impressed my mind ; and I could not re- 
frain, when I arrived here, from mentioning it to Mr. Smith, 
who, I dare say, will recollect it. Like the angel she then 



LETTERS. 305 

appeared, she now really is, fitted by a life of piety and 
Jbeiievolence to join her kindred spirits. She has left us 
her example, and the memory of her many virtues, to com- 
fort our afflicted hearts. Beloved, regretted, and lamented! 
She was like a parent to me, and my full heart has paid 
the tributary tears to her memory. 

Adieu. Believe me yours very affectionately, 

A. A. 



TO JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 

London, 27 September, 1786. 

MY DEAR SON, 

Since I wrote you last, I have made two excursions, one to 
Holland, and one of a week to the Hyde, the seat of Mr. 
Brand-HoUis. Here I was both entertained and delighted. 
In the first place, I must describe Mr. Hollis to you. He is 
a neat, nice bachelor about fifty years old ; a learned, sen- 
sible antiquarian. The late Mr. Hollis, whose name he 
bears, could not have chosen a better representative to have 
bestowed his mantle upon, for with it has descended that 
same love of liberty, benevolence, and philanthropy, which 
distinguished his worthy benefactor. At the entrance of 
the hall you discover the prevailing taste. There are a 
number of ancient busts, amongst which is one of Marcus 
Aurelius, who is a great favorite of Mr. Hollis. He told 
us, that all the great painters who had drawn Jesus Christ, 
had taken the busts of Marcus Aurelius as a model. There 
is a fine white marble bust of the late Mr. Hollis in this col- 
lection. This hall is large and spacious, and has been 
added to the house by Mr. Brand-Hollis since the death of 
his father 1 who left it to him. The chamber where we 
lodged was hung round with portraits of his family. It is 

J' 'Mr. Brand assumed the name of Hollis, in consequence of the bequest 
of his fortune made to him by Thomas Mollis. 

20 



30G LETTERS. 

at one end of the house, and from two windows in front, 
and one at the end, we had a beautiful view of lawns and 
glades, clumps of trees and stately groves, and a piece of 
water full of fish. The borders of the walks in the plea- 
sure-grounds are full of rare shrubs and trees, to which 
America has contributed her full proportion. To give you 
some idea of the singularity in which this good man dis- 
covers his taste, near the walk from his door to the road, 
he has a large and beautiful fir, which he calls Dr. Jebb. 
Having paled this tree in with a neat ornament, he has con- 
secrated it to the memory of that excellent man, with whom 
I had only the pleasure of a short acquaintance, before he 
was called to the regions of immortality. He possessed an 
excellent understanding, an unshaken integrity, and a uni- 
versal benevolence, and was one of the few firm and steady 
friends to America. Cut off in middle age, he left a com- 
panion endowed with an understanding superior to most of 
her sex ; always in delicate health, but now a prey to the 
most piercing grief, which will shortly close the scene with 
her. They had no children, and, being wholly a domestic 
woman, the pleasures of the world have no relish for her. 
Her friends have at length prevailed with her to go into the 
country for a few weeks. 

But to return to Mr. Hollis's curiosities. In his garden 
he has a tall cypress, which he calls General Washington, 
and another by its side, which he has named for Colonel 
Smith, as his aid-de-camp. This gentleman possesses a 
taste for all the fine arts. In architecture, Palladio is his 
oracle. Amongst his paintings are several of the first mas- 
ters. Over his chimney, in his cabinet, are four small por- 
traits, which he told me were his hero, his general, his phi- 
losopher, and his writer. Marcus Aurelius was his general ; 
his hero, pardon me, I have forgotten him. Plato was his| 
writer, and Hutcheson his philosopher, who was also his pre- 
ceptor. Mr. HoUis speaks also of him with great veneration | 
and affection. In the dining-room is a luxuriant picture for 
a bachelor, a Venus and Adonis, by Rembrandt, and two 
views, of a modern date, of the estate in Dorsetshire, which 



LETTERS. 307 

the late Mr. Hollis gave him. As there is only a farm- 
house upon it, he never resides there. There are three pas- 
tures belonging to it, which are called Hollis, Mead, and 
Brand. In Hollis pasture are the remains of its late owner, 
who left it as an order, which was faithfully executed, to be 
buried there, and ten feet deep, the ground to be ploughed 
up over his grave, that not a monument nor stone should tell 
where he lay. This was whimsical and singular, be sure, 
but singularity was his characteristic, as many of his works 
show. 

Between Mr. HoUis's drawing-room and his library, is a 
small cabinet, which he calls the Boudoir, which is full of 
curiosities ; amongst them a dagger made of the sword which 
killed Sir Edmondbury Godfrey, and an inscription, " Me- 
mento Godfrey, Protomartyr. pro Religione Protestantium." 
In every part of the house you see Mr. Hollis's owl, cap of 
liberty, and dagger. In this cabinet is a silver cup, with a 
cover in the shape of an owl, with two rubies for eyes. This 
piece of antiquity was dug up at Canterbury from ten feet 
depth, and is considered a monkish conceit. Amongst the 
curiosities in this room is a collection of duodecimo prints, 
to the number of forty-five, of all the orders of nuns, which 
Mr. Bridgen purchased some years ago in the Austrian 
Netherlands, and presented to Mr. Hollis. Mr. Bridgen has 
lately composed some verses which are placed by the side 
of them. The idea is, that, banished from Germany by the 
Emperor, they have taken an asylum at the Hyde in sight 
of the Druids, the Portico of Athens, and the venerable re- 
mains of Egyptian, Greek, and Roman antiquities. I would 
not omit the mention of a curious medallion, on which is 
wrought a feast of all the heathen gods and goddesses sitting 
round a table. Jupiter throws down upon the middle of it 
one of his thunderbolts, flaming at each end with lightning ;• 
he lights his own pipe at it, and all the rest follow his ex- 
ample ; Venus, Minerva, and Diana are whiffing away. 
This is the first time I ever conceived tobacco an ingredient 
in the feast of the Celestials. It must have been the inven- 
tion of some Dutchman. 



308 LETTERS. 

As select and highly-honored friends, we were admitted 
into the library and to a view of the Miltonian Cabinet. In 
this, he has the original edition of Milton's works, and every 
other to the present day. His library, his pictures, busts, 
medals, coins, Greek, Roman, Carthaginian, and Egyptian, 
are really a selection, as well as a collection, of most rare 
and valuable curiosities. In the early part of his life, he 
visited Rome, Italy, and many other countries. His fortune 
is easy, and, as he has lived a bachelor, his time is occupied 
wholly by the sciences. He has a maiden sister of forty- 
five, I should judge, who lives with him when he is in the 
country. They each of them own a house in town, and live 
separate during the winter. Miss Brand is curious in china, 
and in birds. She has a piece of all the different manufac- 
tures of Porcelain made in this kingdom ; either a cup or 
bowl, a mug or jar. She has also a variety of singing- birds. 
But what I esteem her much more for is, that she has taken 
from the streets half a dozen poor children, clothed them, 
and put them to school. This is doing good not only to the 
present, but future generations. 'Tis really curious to see 
how the taste of the master has pervaded all the family. 
John, the coachman, has a small garden spot, which he in- 
vited me to see. Here was a collection of curious flowers, 
and a little grotto filled with fossils and shells. The garden- 
er, whose house stands within a few rods of the mansion- 
'house, is bee mad. He has a great number of glass hives, 
in which you may see the bees at work ; and he showed me 
the queen's cell. He handles the bees as one would flies ; 
they never sting him. He insists that they know him, and 
•will, with great fluency, read you a lecture of an hour, upon j 
their laws and government. He has an invention for ex- I 
eluding the drones, who are larger bees than the rest, andij 
when once out of the hive, they cannot return. 

It would require a whole volume to enumerate to you all I 
that was worthy attention, and had you been one of the li 
visiters, I dare say you would have collected a larger stock m 
<©f improvement, and been much more minute than I haveli 
been in my account of curiosities ; but I could not remember 18 



LETTERS. 309 

amidst such a variety. I enclose you a drawing of the house, 
which Mr. Hollis gave me. 

My visit to Holland was agreeable, but to your aunt 
Cranch I must refer you for particulars. Madam Dumas 
and Miss were absent upon her estate until the evening be- 
fore I came away. I called to pay them a visit, and had a 
very cordial reception. Mr. Dumas speaks of you with 
great affection, as well as Madame, and Miss looked kind. 
The Marquis de Verac inquired after you with great polite- 
ness ; said you were interpreter for him and Mr. Dana when 
you were at Petersburgh, and that, if I was dressed in your 
clothes, he should have taken me for you. " Years except- 
ed," he should have added ; but that was a mental reserva- 
tion. He is ambasssdor at the Hague. 

Remember me affectionately to your brothers, and to all 
other friends ; and believe me most tenderly 

Your ever afTectionate mother, 

A. A. 

October 14th. Enclosed, you will find a medal of his 
present Majesty. As you have no great affection for him, 
you may exchange it for any property you like better. 



TO MRS. SHAW. 

London, 21 November, 17S6. 

MY DEAR SISTER, 

Mr. S called upon us a day or two ago, and delivered 

; me your kind letter of July the 20th. It was of a later date 
! than any I had received from you, though near four months 
old. It was a little unfortunate for the gentleman, that Mr. 
Adams entered immediately into an inquir}'- of him respect- 
ing the state and commerce of the Massachusetts, of which, 
I be sure the gentleman drew a most gloomy picture, and 
finished the whole by saying, that the people in the United 
States were as much oppressed by taxes as they were in 



310 LETTERS. 

Europe. This being so wholly groundless, it roused the 
quick feelings of Mr. Adams, who replied a little warmly, 
" Give me leave to tell you, Sir, that people who hold this 
language, betray a total ignorance of the subject. Name 
the article in this country, even to the light of heaven, the 
air you breathe, and the water you drink, which is not 
taxed. Loaded down with accumulated burdens is this 
free people^ yet the whole is not sufficient to pay even the 
interest of the national debt, and the charges of govern- 
ment. Mr. Pitt's surpltis is a vision, and new methods of 
taxation must be devised. Pray, are our farmers perishing 
in the midst of plenty, as in Ireland ? Are our fishermen 
starving ? Cannot the laborer find a subsistence ? Or has 
the price of labor fallen to sixpence, and subsistence risen 
to a shilling ? Or is it only trade that languishes ? Thank 
God, that necessity, then, will oblige those who have lived 
luxuriously at the expense of others, and upon property 
which was not their own, to do so no longer. There is not 
a merchant in England, France, or Holland, with a capital 
which could buy fifty of our most opulent merchants, that 
lives at half the expense which I have been informed many 
of ours have run into during the war, and since." 

By this time I had got into that part of 5''our letter, which 
informed me that Mr. S had been unfortunate in busi- 
ness. I knew Mr. Adams was a perfect stranger to this, 
and could design nothing against the gentleman ; but still I 
felt pained for him, as I presumed he had never had such a 
lesson before. He drew in his horns, and was more upon 
his guard the remainder of the time. We asked him to 
• dine with us the next day, but he was engaged. Mr. Adams 
will return his visit, and then we shall send him a card of I 
invitation. In his manners and address he appears much of i 
a gentleman. 

The accounts you gave me of the singing of your birds, 
and the prattle of your children, entertained me much. Do 
you know that European birds have not half the melody of | 
ours } Nor is their fruit half so sweet, nor their flowers 
half so fragrant, nor their manners half so pure, nor their 



LETTERS. 311 

people half so virtuous ; but keep this to yourself, or I shall 
be thought more than half deficient in understanding and 
taste. I will not dispute what every person must assent to ; 
that the fine arts, manufactures, and agriculture have arrived 
at a greater degree of maturity and perfection. But what 
is their age ? What their individual riches, when compared 
with us ? Far removed from my mind may the national 
prejudice be, of conceiving all that is good and excellent 
comprised within the narrow compass of the United States. 
The Universal Parent has dispensed his blessings throughout 
all creation, and, though to some he hath given a more 
goodly heritage than to others, we have reason to believe 
that a general order and harmony are maintained by appor- 
tioning to each his proper station. Though seas, mountains, 
and rivers are geographical boundaries, they contract not 
the benevolence and good will of the liberal mind, which 
can extend itself beyond the limits of country and kindred, 
and claim fellowship with Christian, Jew, or Turk. What 
a lesson did the great Author of our religion give to 
mankind by the parable of the Jew and the Samaritan ; but 
how little has it been regarded ! To the glory of the 
present age, they are shaking off that narrow, contracted 
spirit of priestcraft and usurpation, which has for so many 
ages tyrannized over the minds of mankind, and deluged 
the world in blood. They consider religion not as a state 
stalking-horse, to raise men to temporal power and dignity ; 
but as a wise and benevolent system, calculated to still the 
boisterous passions, to restrain the malevolent ones, to curb 
the ambitious, and to harmonize mankind to the temper of 
its great Author, who came to make peace and not to 

' destroy. The late act of toleration, passed by Virginia, is 
esteemed here as an example to the world. 

We are now really in the gloomy month of November, 
such as I have heard it described, but did not last year 
experience. Now we have it, all smoke, fog, and dark- 

[ ness ; and the general mourning for the Princess Amelia adds 
to the gloom of the scene. I was yesterday at the drawing- 
room, for the first time since her death ; and, though I can- 



312 tftTTERS. 

not ^y all faces gathered blackness, all bodies appeared so. 
As "she had given her fortune to her German nephews, it 
would have been absurd to have shown any appearance of 
grief Poor John Bull is vastly angry and mortified. Had 
it been given to the Prince of Wales, his liberal hand 
would soon have poured forth the golden shower ; and, as 
his aunt acquired it all in this nation, here it ought to have 
remained, says John ; but he cannot alter it, so he vents 
himself, as usual, in abuse and bellowing. 

Adieu. Your sister, 



I 



TO MRS. CRANCH. 

London, 20 January, 1787 

MY DEAR SISTEE, 

I WILL now give you some account of my late tour to 
Bath, that seat of fashionable resort, where, like the rest of 
the world, I spent a fortnight in amusement and dissipation, 
but returned, I assure you, with double pleasure to my own 
fireside, where only, thank Heaven, my substantial happi- 
ness subsists. Here I find that satisfaction, which neither 
satiates by enjoyment, nor palls upon reflection ; for, though 
I like sometimes to mix in the gay world, and view the 
manners as they rise, I have much reason to be grateful to 
my parents, that my early education gave me not an 
habitual taste for what is termed fashionable life. The 
Eastern monarch, after having partaken of every gratifica- 
tion and sensual pleasure, which power, wealth, and dignity 
could bestow, pronounced it all vanity and vexation of 
spirit ; and I have too great a respect for his wisdom to 
doubt his authority. I, however, passed through the rou- 
tine, and attended three balls, two concerts, one play, and 
two private parties, besides dining and breakfasting abroad. 
We made up a party of Americans ; Mr. and Mrs. Smith, 
Mr. and Mrs. Rucker, and Miss Ramsay, Mr. Shippen, Mr. 



LETTERS. 313 

Harrison, Mr. Murray, Mr. Paradise, Mr. Bridgen, and a 
Count Zenobia, a Venetian nobleman. These, with our do- 
mestics, made a considerable train, and when we went to the 
rooms, we at least had a party to speak to. As I had but 
one acquaintance at Bath, and did not seek for letters of 
introduction, I had no reason to expect half the civility I 
experienced. I was, however, very politely treated by Mr. 
Fairfax and his lady, who had been in America, and who own 
an estate in Virginia, and by a sister of Mr. Hartley's, who, 
though herself a cripple, was every way attentive and polite 
to us. Mr. John Boylston, whom I dare say you recollect, 
was the acquaintance I mentioned. He visited us imme- 
diately upon our arrival, and during our stay made it his 
whole study to show us every civility in his power. We 
breakfasted with him, and he dined with us. He has very 
handsome apartments, though he lives at lodgings. We 
drank tea and spent an evening with him, in a style of 
great elegance ; for he is one of the nicest bachelors in the 
world, and bears his age wonderfully, retaining the vivacity 
and sprightliness of youth. He has a peculiarity in his 
manners, which is natural to him ; but is a man of great 
reading and knowledge. He is a firm friend and well- 
wisher to America, as he amply testified during the war 
by his kindness to the American prisoners. 

And now you will naturally expect that I should give 
you some account of Bath, the antiquity of it, and the fame 
of its waters, having been so greatly celebrated. The story, 
which is related of its first discovery, is not the least curious 
part of it. A certain King Bladud, said to be a descendant 
from Hercules, was banished his father's court, on account 
of his having the leprosy. Thus disgraced, he wandered 
in disguise into this part of the country, and let himself to 
a swine-herd, to whom he communicated the disease, as 
well as to the hogs. In driving his hogs one day at some 
distance from his home, they wandered away to one of 
these streams, of which they were so fond that he could 
not get them out, until he enticed them with acorns. After 
their wallowing in them for several successive days, he 



314 LITERS. 

observed that their scales fell off, and that his herd were 
perfectly cured. Upon which he determined to try the 
experiment upon himself; and, after a few bathings, he 
was made whole. And Bladud's figure in stone, is placed 
in the bath known by the name of the King's Bath, with an 
inscription relating his discovery of these baths, eight hun- 
dred and sixty-three years before Christ. 

Bath lies in a great valley, surrounded with hills. It is 
handsomely built, chiefly with free-stone, which is its own 
growth, and is dug from the sides of its hills. The streets 
are as narrow and inconvenient for carriages as those of 
Paris, so that chairs are chiefly used, particularly in the old 
town. Bath was formerly walled in, and was a very small 
place ; but of late years it is much extended, and the new 
buildings are erected upon hills. Since it has become a 
place of such fashionable resort, it has been embellished 
with a Circus and a Crescent. The Parades are magnifi- 
cent piles of buildings, the square is a noble one, and the 
Circus is said to be a beautiful piece of architecture ; but 
what I think the beauty of Bath, is the Crescent. The front 
consists of a range of Ionic columns on a rustic basement ; 
the ground falls gradually before it down to the river Avon, 
about half a mile's distance, and the rising country on the 
other side of the river holds up to it a most delightful 
prospect. The Crescent takes its name from the form in 
which the houses stand ; all of which join. There is a 
parade and street before them, a hundred feet wide, and 
nothing in front to obstruct this beautiful prospect. In this 
situation are the new assembly-rooms, which are said to 
exceed any thing of the kind in the kingdom, both as to 
size and decoration ; but, large as they are, they were 
completely crowded the evenings that I attended. There is 
a constant emulation subsisting between the new and old 
rooms, similar to the North and South Ends of Boston. It 
was said whilst I was there, that there were fourteen 
thousand persons more than the inhabitants of Bath. By 
this you may judge what a place of resort it is, not only 
for the infirm, but for the gay, the indolent, the curious, the 



LETTERS. 315 

gambler, the fortune-hunter, and even for those who go, as 
the thoughtless girl from the country told Beau Nash, (as he 
was styled,) that she came, out of wantonness. It is one 
constant scene of dissipation and gambling, from Monday 
morning till Saturday night, and the ladies sit down to cards 
in the public rooms as they would at- a private party ; and 
not to spend a fortnight or a month at Bath at this season of 
the year, is as unfashionable as it would be to reside in 
London during the summer season. Yet Bath is a place I 
should never visit a second time for pleasure. To derive a 
proper improvement from company, it ought to be select, 
and to consist of persons respectable both for their morals 
and their understanding ; but such is the prevailing taste, 
that provided you can be in a crowd, with here and there a 
glittering star, it is considered of little importance what the 
character of the person is who wears it. Few consider 
that the foundation stone, and the pillar on which they erect 
the fabric of their felicity, must be in their own hearts, 
otherwise the winds of dissipation will shake it, and the 
floods of pleasure overwhelm it in ruins. What is the chief 
end of man ? is a subject well worth the investigation of 
every rational being. What, indeed, is life, or its enjoy- 
ments, without settled principle, laudable purposes, mental 
exertions, and internal comfort, that sunshine of the soul ; 
and how are these to be acquired in the hurry and tumult 
of the world ? My visit to Bath, and the scenes which I 
mixed in, instead of exciting a gayety of disposition, led 
me into a train of moral reflections, which I could not 
refrain from detailing to you in my account of it. 

Upon my return, I had a new scene of folly to go through, 
which was, preparing for the birth-day. But as the fashion- 
able Magazine will detail this matter, I shall omit any ac- 
count of birth-day dresses and decorations, only that I most 
sincerely wish myself rid of it. It is a prodigious expense, 
from which I derive neither pleasure nor satisfaction. 

The riots and dissensions in our State have been matter 
of very serious concern to me. No one will suppose that 
our situation here is rendered more eligible in consequence 



316 LETTERS. 

of it ; but I hope it will lead the wise and sensible part of 
the community in our State, as well as in the whole Union, 
to reflect seriously upon their situation, and having wise 
laws, to execute them with vigor, justice, and punctuality. 
I have been gratified with perusing many late publications 
in our Boston papers ; particularly the speech of the Chief 
Justice, which does him great honor. Mr. Adams, you will 
see by the books which Captain Cushing has carried out, 
has been employed in strengthening and supporting our 
governments, and has spared no pains to collect examples 
for them, and show them, in one short, comprehensive state- 
ment, the dangerous consequences of unbalanced power. 
We have the means of being the first and the happiest people 
upon the globe. 

Captain Scott, I hear, is just arrived ; but it may be a 
week, perhaps ten days, before he will get up himself, so 
that, whatever letters he may have, I shall not be able to 
get them before Captain Cushing sails. This is rather un- 
fortunate, as there may be something I might wish to reply 
to. As to India handkerchiefs, I give two guineas a-piece 
here for them, so that they are lower with you, as well as 
all other India goods. I give more for an ounce of spice 
than I used to do for a quarter of a pound in America. 
Only think, too, of five shillings sterling for every pound of 
coffee we use ! O, pray, by the next opportunity, send me 
a peck of Tuscarora rice. Let it be sifted. I want it only 
to scour my hands with. " Tuscarora rice ? say you, 
" why, I suppose she means Indian meal." Very true, my 
dear sister ; but I will tell you a good story about this said 
rice. An ancestor of a family, who now hold their heads 
very high, is said to have made a fortune by it. The old 
grand-dame went out to America, when its productions were 
not much known here, and returned in rather indigent cir- 
cumstances. After some time, knowing the taste in all 
ages for cosmetics, she made out a pompous advertisement 
of a costly secret which she possessed for purifying and 
beautifying the complexion, — nothing less than the " Tus- 
carora rice " at a guinea an ounce. The project took like the 



LETTERS. 317 

" Olympian dew " at this clay, and barrel after barrel was 
disposed of at the moderate price before mentioned, till one 
fatal day, a sailor, whose wife had procured one quarter of 
an ounce, was caught in the very act of using it. The sailor 
very roughly threw away the darling powder, upon which 
his wife exclaimed that he had ruined her, as she could pro- 
cure no more, there being an unusual scarcity at that time. 
The fellow examined the paper, and swore it was nothing 
but Indian meal, and that he would bring her two barrels for 
a guinea, the next voyage he went. Upon this, the impos- 
ture was discovered, and the good woman obliged to decamp. 
Now, though I do not esteem it so highly as the sailor's wife, 
I pronounce it the best antidote to sea-coal black, that can 
be found. One friend and another have supplied me ever 
since I have been here, but now I am quite destitute. It is 
an article in so small quantity, that it will not be an object 
for the custom-house, so that it may come safely. 

Kemomber me most affectionately to all my friends. I 
cannot write to half of them ; my nieces shall hear from 
me by Raimond ; in the mean time be assured, my dear 
sister, of the warmest affection of 

Your sister, 

A. A. 



TO MRS. CRANCH. 

London, 25 February, 17S7. 

MY DEAR SISTER, 

Captain Davis called yesterday to let me know that he 
should sail in the course of the week. Captain Barnard will 
not be long after him, and I almost wish I was going to em- 
bark with him. I think I should not feel more anxious if I 
was in the midst of all the disturbances, than I do at this 
distance, where imagination is left at full liberty. When law 
and justice are laid prostrate, who or what is secure ? I re- 
ceived your letters, which came by Captain Scott, just as I 



318 LETTERS. 

was going to step into the carriage to go into the City upon 
some business. As I was alone, I took them with me to read ; 
and, when I came to that part of your letter wherein you say 
that you had hoped to have seen only peace in future, after 
surmounting the horrors of one war, the idea was too power- 
ful for me, and the tears involuntarily flowed. I was obliged 
to quit the letter till I had finished my business ; the thoughts 
which naturally occurred to me were, — " For what have 
we been contending against the tyranny of Britain, if we are 
to become the sacrifice of a lawless banditti ? Must our 
glory be thus shorn and our laurels thus blasted ? Is it a 
trifling matter to destroy a government ? Will my country- 
men justify the maxim of tyrants, that mankind are not made 
for freedom ? I will, however, still hope that the majority 
of our fellow-citizens are too wise, virtuous, and enlightened, 
to permit these outrages to gain ground and triumph. Solon, 
the wise lawgiver of Athens, published a manifesto for ren- 
dering infamous all persons who, in civil seditions, should re- 
main spectators of their country's danger by a criminal 
neutrality. The spirit shown by the gentlemen volunteers, 
and the capture of Shattuck, does honor to our State. More 
energy in government would have prevented the evil from 
spreading so far as it has done. 

" Mercy but gives setlition time to rally. 
Every soft, pliant, talking, busy rogue, 
Gathering a tlock of hot-brained fools together, 
Can preach up new rebellion, 
Spread false reports of the Senate, working up 
Their madness to a fury quick and desperate, 
Till they run headlong into civil discords, 
And do our busmess with their own destruction." 

This is a picture of the civil dissensions in Rome, and to 
our mortification we find, that human nature is the same in 
all ages. Neither the dread of tyrants, the fall of empires, 
the havoc and desolation of the human species, nor the 
more gloomy picture of civil discord, are sufficient to deter 
mankind from pursuing the same steps which have led 
others to ruin ; selfishness and spite, avarice and ambition. 



LETTERS. 319 

pride and a levelling principle, are qualities very unfavor- 
able to the existence of civil liberty. But, whatever is to 
be the fate of our country, we have determined to come 
home and share it with you. Congress have never given 
Mr. Adams a recall from Holland, and he is vested (with 
Mr. Jefferson) with powers to form treaties with several 
other countries. His commission to this Court will termi- 
nate this time twelve months, and he has written to Con- 
gress his fixed and full determination to resign his commis- 
sion and return at that period, if not before. So that, my 
dear sister, I most joyfully accept your invitation, and will 
come home, God willing, ere another year expires. Dis- 
agreeable as the situation of my native State appears, I 
shall quit Europe with more pleasure than I came into it, 
uncontaminated, I hope, with its manners and vices. I have 
learned to know the world and its value ; I have seen high 
life ; I have witnessed the luxury and pomp of state, the 
power of riches and the influence of titles, and have beheld 
all ranks bow before them as the only shrine worthy of 
worship. Notwithstanding this, I feel that I can return to 
my little cottage, and be happier than here ; and, if we 
have not wealth, we have what is better, — integrity. 

27 February, 1787. 

I had written you thus far with an intention of sending 
by Davis, but received a card to-day from Captain Barnard, 
that he will sail at the same time, which is a fortnight sooner 
than I expected. I have concluded to send by him. I 
wrote you by Captain Cushing, on board of whom I got Mr. 
Elworthy to put a small present for you, but was much 
mortified a day or two after to find, by a Boston paper, that 
they were prohibited articles. I hope you will not meet 
with trouble on account of them. I cannot but approve the 
spirit which dictated the measure ; the causes which gave 
rise to it must be deplored, for it is evidently a work of 
necessity rather than choice. The luxury, which had made 
such rapid strides amongst our countrymen, was more cri- 
minal than that which is founded upon real wealth, for they 



320 LETTERS. 

have rioted upon the property which belonged to others. 
It is a very just observation, that those who have raised an 
empire have always been grave and severe ; they who have 
ruined it have been uniformly distinguished for their dissi- 
pation. We shall wait with impatience for the result of 
General Lincoln's expedition. Much depends upon his suc- 
cess. Government seem afraid to use the power they have, 
and recommend and entreat, where they ought to command ; 
which makes me apprehend that the evil lies deeper than 
the heads or hands of Shays or Shattuck. From letters 
received here both from Boston and New York, it is to be 
feared that visionary schemes and ambitious projects are 
taking possession of men of property and science ; but, 
before so important an edifice as an established government 
is altered or changed, its foundation should be examined by 
skilful artists, and the materials of which it is composed, 
duly investigated. 

The " Defence of the American Constitutions " is a work 
which may, perhaps, contribute to this end, and I most sin- 
cerely wish it may do the good intended. 

I lament with you the loss of a worthy man, for such in- 
deed was the friend of my dear Eliza. Our own duration 
is but a span ! then shall we meet those dear friends and 
relatives who have gone before us, and be engaged together 
in more elevated views, and purer pleasures and enjoy- 
ments, than mortality is capable of. Let this idea soothe 
the afflicted mind, and administer balm to the wounded 
heart. All things are under the government of a supreme, 
all- wise Director ; to Him commit the hour, the day, the 
year. Affectionately your sister, 

A. A. 



MY DEAR SISTER, 



TO MRS. CRANCH. 

London, 28 April, 1787. 



We have accounts, by way of New York, to the 8th of 



LETTERS. 321 

March, which inform us that General Lincoln had met with 
more resistance from the insurgents than we had reason to 
expect from former accounts ; that an engagement had 
taken place, in which several persons on both sides fell, but 
we do not learn who ; that Shays had got off into Vermont, 
where it was probable he would meet with protection. I 
hope these accounts are not well founded. Let not the 
patriots of our country be discouraged or disheartened ; 
although their affairs are much embarrassed, the country is 
fruitful in resources. Patience, perseverance, industry, and 
frugality will accomplish great things. Our countrymen 
create most of the misfortunes they feel, for want of a dis- 
interested spirit, a confidence in each other, and a union of 
the whole, it is a great misfortune, when one State thwarts 
the measures of eleven or twelve, and thus injures the credit 
and reputation of the whole. The situation of our country 
greatly damps the pleasure I should feel in anticipating my 
return to it. You may well suppose that falsehoods in 
abundance are circulated here ; an attempt to publish the 
truth or to contradict them, would have no other effect than 
raising a nest of hornets and wasps, and would employ the 
whole time of one person. An extract of a letter published, 
from Dr. Rush to Dr. Price, giving an account of the esta-- 
blishment of two or three new societies, drew upon the lat- 
ter so much abuse and scurrility as would disgrace any 
people. The writer, like an envenomed toad, spit forth his 
poison. There are a set of refugees residing here, the 
enormity of whose offences forbids their ever returning 
again to America. Like Satan, they look to the heights, 
from whence they have fallen, with a malice and envy 
similar to that which the arch fiend felt, when he beheld 
the glory of the new world ; and, like him, they wish to 
destroy the happiness of its inhabitants. Such are Gallo- 
way, and Smith, who is gone prime minister to Lord Dor- 
chester. A few days before he left this country, he gave 
it as his solid opinion, that he should live to see America 
sue to Britain for protection, and to be received again by 
it ; he might have added, it should not be his fault if they 

21 



322 LETTERS. 

did not. I hope a watchful eye will be kept over Lord 
Dorchester and all his movements. This government are 
as much disposed to sow seeds of dissension among us as 
ever, and build wholly upon our splitting to pieces. 

Adieu. Yours, 



TO MRS. WARREN. 

London, 14 May, 1787. 

MY DEAR MADAM, 

I HAVE lately been reading Mrs. Montague's Essays upon 
the genius and writings of Shakspeare, and I am so well 
pleased with them that I take the liberty of presenting them 
to you. The lady is still living, a widow, and possessed of 
an ample fortune, without any children. She has a nephew 
who bears the same name, and has lately been returned a 
member to Parliament. I should have wished to form 
an acquaintance with her, if I had not learnt that she was 
a violent anti- American, though sister of a Mr. Robinson, 
who has written some things in favor of our country, and 
who has always been friendly to our cause. 

I have resided in this country nearly two years, and, in 
that time, I have made some few acquaintances whom I 
esteem, and shall leave with regret ; but the customs and 
manners of a metropolis are unfriendly to that social inter- 
course which I have ever been accustomed to. Amusement 
and diversion may always be purchased at the theatres and 
places of public resort, so that little pains are taken to cul- 
tivate that benevolence and interchange of kindness which 
sweetens life, in lieu of which mere visits of form are sub- 
stituted to keep up the union. Not only the wrinkled brow 
of age is grasping at the card-table, and even tricking with 
mean avarice, but the virgin bloom of innocence and beauty 
is withered at the same vigils. I do not think I should draw 
a false picture of the nobility and gentry of this metropolis. 



LETTERS. 323 

if I were to assert that money and pleasure are the sole ob- 
jects of their ardent pursuit ; public virtue, and, indeed, all 
virtue, is exposed to sale, and as to principle, where is it to 
be found, either in the present administration or opposition? 
Luxury, dissipation, and vice, have a natural tendency to 
extirpate every generous principle, and leave the heart sus- 
ceptible of the most malignant vices. To the total absence 
of principle, must be ascribed the conduct of the heir-appa- 
rent to the British throne, which is the subject of much 
speculation at this moment. The world has supposed that 
a marriage had taken place between the prince and a lady 
known by the name of Fitzherbert, whom, for three years, he 
pursued; driving her for more than half that time out of her 
country to avoid him. As she was in independent circum- 
stances, of an ancient and respectable family, of a fair 
character and honorable connexions, every person pre- 
sumed her married to him, though contrary to the esta- 
blished laws of the land, and this, not only by a Catholic 
priest, but a Protestant one too. Every step for more than 
a year has confirmed this idea ; as the lady has attended 
him not only to the watering places, but into all public and 
private parties, and, at the prince's request, has been coun- 
tenanced by the first persons in the kingdom — and the 
public papei's have announced the report, and given credit 
to it uncontradicted throughout all Europe. But now, at a 
time when he wishes to be relieved from the load of debt 
he has contracted, and finds that this afiair is likely to be- 
come a subject of parliamentary discussion, he authorizes 
Charles Fox (a man as unprincipled as the prince) to de- 
clare the whole story a malicious falsehood, and in the most 
explicit terms, to deny even the shadow of a marriage. Yet 
not a person whom I have heard mention the subject since, 
believes a syllable of Mr. Fox's assertion. Thus does this 
young man set both law and decency at defiance. His 
friends are even so barefaced as to pretend that no connex- 
ion but of the platonic kind has ever subsisted between 
them — he, a mere Scipio, and she, a vestal. What a pros- 
pect for this country ! What a prostration of honor and 



324 LETTERS. 

virtue ! The heir-apparent frequenting the haunts of in- 
temperance and vice, his greatest intimates sycophants and 
knaves, appearing in company so disguised as to lose him- 
self, and commit the greatest rudeness, which was the case 
not a month since ; yet, when sober, really possessing the 
outward^ appearance of a well-bred gentleman. By some, 
he is held up as a man of learning and abilities, but of this 
I cannot learn any specimens, not even a refinement in his 
vices, since he is branded with a taste for the lowest and 
most vulgar. But I will quit him, since I shall never owe 
him either honor or allegiance, and will turn my attention 
to my own country, which, though not terrified with the pros- 
pect of a profligate prince to govern it, appears to be in an 
untranquillized state, embarrassed in its finances, distressed 
in its commerce, and unbalanced in its governments. But 
I have faith that will remove mountains ; and, as distress 
and difficulties in private life are frequently spurs to dili- 
gence, so have we seen public industry excited in the same 
manner. During the late war, success crowned our efforts, 
and gave us independence. Our misfortune is, that we be- 
came indolent and intoxicated. Luxury, with ten thousand 
evils in her train, exiled the humble virtues. Industry and 
frugality were swallowed up in dissipation. 

" But it is not upon record," says a late writer, "■ that 
any State was ever yet so exhausted, but that whilst it en- 
joyed liberty it might draw new resources from its own 
vitals. Though the tree is lopped, yet so long as the root 
remains unhurt, it will throw out a greater luxuriancy of 
branches, produce fruits of better flavor, and derive fresh 
vigor from the axe." 

Why, my dear madam, may we not console ourselves 
with ideas of this kind, instead of giving way to despon- 
dency ? I was very happy to learn that my young friend 
Harry distinguished himself with the ardor of a patriot and 
the zeal of a good citizen in accompanying General Lin- 
coln in his late expedition. Had Pericles lived in the pre- 
sent day, he could not have made the boast which he does 
in his funeral oration over the Athenians, saying, that they 



LETTERS. 325 

were the only people who thought those who did not lend 
their assistance in State affairs, not indolent, but good for 
nothing. It is indeed a pleasing presage of future good, 
when the most promising youth shrink not from danger, 
through a fondness for those delights which a peaceful, 
affluent life bestows, but 

"Bare their bold breast, and pour their generous blood," 

esteeming it a dishonor that their country should stand in 
need of any thing which their valor can achieve. 

I long, my dear madam, to return to my native land. 
My little cottage, encompassed with my friends, has more 
charms for me than the drawing-room of St. James, where 
studied civility and disguised coldness cover malignant 
hearts. 

I will not close this letter without informing you that I 
am a grand — O no ! that would be confessing myself old, 
which would be quite unfashionable and vulgar — but true it 
is. I have a fine grandson. I regret a little that it was not 
a daughter, for then I should have claimed the little one for 
the great one. Mrs. Smith desires me to present her re- 
spectful compliments to you, with thanks for your kind and 
friendly letter, which she will notice as soon as she is able. 
Be so good as to present ray regards to the General and all 
your worthy family. I must acquit myself of a promise 
made to a young gentleman, who requested me, when I 
wrote to you, to lay him respectfully at your feet, by which 
I presume he meant that I should express the high esteem 
and profound veneration which he always professes towards 
you, and I know not how to do it better than by giving you 
his own words. I dare say you will be at no loss to recol- 
lect this gentleman by the name of Shippen, who is as gen- 
teel, well-bred a youth as any one from our country, and 
who is quite at home with us, as well as his companion, 
Mr. Cutting, who I think will make a figure in life, as he 
has both abilities and application. 

1 know not what to say for my companion, that he has 



326 LETTERS. 

not written a single letter by this opportunity, but that he is 
so much engaged in travelling through the Italian republics, 
that I cannot draw off his attention except only to official 
letters. He says his friends must accept his printed letters. 
I will not apologize for the length of my letter, conscious 
as I am of all my sins of omission, but be assured, dear 
madam, that neither a want of affection or regard are in 
the number. For those my heart shall not reproach 

Your assured friend, 

Abigail Adams. 



MY DEAR SISTER, 



TO MRS. CRANCH. 

London, 16 July, 1787. 



If, as the poet says, " expectation makes the blessing sweet," 
your last letter was peculiarly so. As you conjectured, I 
was not a little anxious that neither Captain Barnard nor M 
Davis brought me a line. I was apprehensive that some- 
thing was the matter, some imminent danger threatening 
some friend, of which my friends chose not to inform me until 
their fate was decided. I sent on board the ship ; the soli- 
tary box of meal was searched throughout. What, not one 
line from my dear sister Cranch, she who has never before 
failed me ? Can it be possible ? Uncle Smhh did not, as 
usual, say in his letter, that all friends were well. Dr. Tufts, 
for the first time, omitted mentioning my children. That 
might be because he thought that they had written. Thus 
w^as my mind agitated until Captain Scott's arrival, who 
brought me your kind letter of May the 20th, but none 
from either of my nieces or children. Those dear lads do 
not write so often as I wish them to do, because they have 
nothing more to say than that they are well ; not consider- 
ing how important that intelligence is to an affectionate 
parent. Mr. J. Cranch wrote to me soon after Barnard's 
arrival, and sent me an extract of a letter from Miss B. 



LETTERS. 327 

Palmer, with a particular account of the performances in 
April, at Cambridge, in which your son and mine bore a 
part. These young gentlemen are much indebted to her 
for her partiality and the very flattering manner in which 
she describes tliem. I hope they will continue to deserve 
the esteem of all good judges, and do honor to themselves 
and their country. The account you give me of the health 
of J. Q. A. is no more than I expected to hear. I warned 
him frequently before he left me, and have been writing 
him ever since. I hope he will take warning before it is 
too late. It gives me great satisfaction to learn that he has 
passed through the University with so much reputation, and 
that his fellow students are attached to him. I have never 
once regretted the resolution he took of quitting Europe, 
and placing himself upon the theatre of his own country ; 
where, if his life is spared, I presume he will neither be an 
idle nor useless spectator. Heaven grant, that he may not 
have more distressing scenes before him, and a gloomier 
stage to tread, than those on which his father has acted for 
twelve years past. But the curtain rises before him, and 
instead of Peace waving her olive-branch, or Liberty, seated 
in a triumphal car, or Commerce, Agriculture, and Plenty, 
pouring forth their stores, Sedition hisses. Treason roars, Re- 
ijellion gnashes her teeth, Mercy suspends the justly merited 
blow, but Justice strikes the guilty victim. Here may the 
scene close, and brighter prospects open before us in future. 
I hope the political machine will move with more safety 
and security this year than the last, and that the new 
head may be endowed with wisdom sufficient to direct it. 
There are some good spokes in the wheels, though the 
master workmen have been unskilful in discarding some of 
the best, and choosing others not sufficiently seasoned ; but 
the crooked and cross-grained will soon break to pieces ; 
though this may do much mischief in the midst of a jour- 
ney, and shatter the vehicle, yet another year may repair 
the damages. But to quit allegory, or you will think I have 
been reading Johnny Bunyan, the conduct of a certain gen- 
tleman is rather curious. I really think him an honest man, 



• 



328 LETTERS. 

but ambition is a very wild passion, and there are some 
characters, that never can be pleased unless they have the 
entire direction of all public affairs. And, when they are 
unemployed, they are continually blaming those in office, 
and accusing them of ignorance or incapacity, and spread- 
ing alarms that the country is rained and undone ; but put 
them into office, and it is more than probable they will pur- 
sue the same conduct which they had before condemned. 
But no man is fit to be trusted, who is not diffident of him- 
self. Such is the frailty of human nature, and so great a 
flatterer is self-love, that it presents false appearances, and 
deceives its votaries. 

I have had with me for a fortnight a little daughter of 
Mr. Jefferson's who arrived here with a young negro girl, 
her servant, from Virginia. Mr. Jefferson wrote me some 
months ago that he expected them, and desired me to receive 
them. I did so, and was amply repaid for my trouble. A 
finer child of her age I never saw. So mature an under- 
standing, so womanly a behaviour, and so much sensibility, 
united, are rarely to be met with. I grew so fond of her, 
and she was so attached to me, that, when Mr. Jefferson 
sent for her, they were obliged to force the little creature 
away. She is but eight years old. She would sit some- 
times, and describe to me the parting with her aunt who 
brought her up, the obligations she was under to her, and 
the love she had for her little cousins, till the tears would 
stream down her cheeks ; and how I had been her friend, 
and she loved me. Her papa would break her heart by 
making her go again. She clung round me so that I could 
not help shedding a tear at parting with her. She was the 
favorite of every one in the house. I regret that such fine 
spirits must be spent in the wall of a convent. She is a 
beautiful girl, too. 

This, I presume, is Commencement day. I dare say 
the young folks feel anxious. I don't know whether I should 
venture to be a hearer, if I was in America. I should have 
as many perturbations as the speakers. I hope they will 
acquit themselves with honor. Mr. Adams desires me to 



LETTERS. 329 

tell cousin Cranch that any of his boooks are at his service. 
I believe we must send some of these young men to settle 
in Vermont. Can they get their bread in Massachusetts ? 
But " the world is all before them "; may " Providence be 
their guide." Your sister, 

A. A. 



TO MRS. CRANCH. 

Grosvenor Square, 1-5 September, 17S7. 

MY DEAR SISTER, 

When I wrote you last, I was just going to set out on a 
journey to the West of England. 1 promised you to visit 
Mr. Cranch's friends and relatives. This we did, as I shall 
relate to you. We were absent a month, and made a tour 
of about six hundred miles. The first place we made any 
stay at was Winchester. There was formerly an Earl of 
Winchester, by the name of Saer de Quincy. He was 
created Earl of Winchester by King John, in 1224, and 
signed Magna Charta, which I have seen ; the original being 
now in the British Museum, with the handwriting to it. 

It is said, that, in the year 1321, the title became extinct 
through failure of male heirs, but I rather think through the 
poverty of some branch, unable to contend for it. The fam- 
ily originally came from Normandy, in the time of William 
the Conqueror. They bear the same arms with those of our 
ancestors, except that ours substituted an animal for the 
crest in lieu of an earl's coronet. I have a perfect remem- 
brance of a parchment in our grandmother's possession, 
which, when quite a child, I used to amuse myself with. 
This was a genealogical table, which gave the descent of 
the family from the time of William the Conqueror. This 
parchment Mr. Edmund Quincy borrowed, on some occasion, 
and 1 have often heard our grandmother say, with some 
anger, that she could never recover it. As the old gentle- 
man is still living, I wish Mr. Cranch would question him 
about it, and know what hands it went into, and whether there 



• 



330 LETTERS. 

is any probability of its ever being recovered ; and be so 
good as to ask uncle Quincy how our grandfather came by 
it, and from whence our great-grandfather came, where he 
first settled, and take down in writing all you can learn from 
him and Mr. Edmund Quincy respecting the family. You 
will smile at my zeal, perhaps, on this occasion ; but can it 
be wondered at that I should wish to trace an ancestor 
amongst the signers of Magna Charta ? Amongst those who 
voted against receiving an explanatory charter in the Massa- 
chusetts, stands the name of our venerable grandfather, ac- 
companied with only one other ; this the journals of the 
House will show, to his immortal honor. I do not expect 
either titles or estate from the recovery of the genealogical 
table, were there any probability of obtaining it. Yet, if I 
was in possession of it money should not purchase it from me. 

But to return to Winchester. It is a very ancient place, 
and was formerly the residence of the Saxon and Norman 
kings. There still remains a very famous cathedral church, 
in the true Gothic architecture, being partly built in the year 
1079. I attended divine service there, but was much more 
entertained with the venerable and majestic appearance of 
the ancient pile, than with the modern, flimsy discourse of 
the preacher. A meaner performance I do not recollect to 
have heard ; but, in a church which would hold several 
thousands, it might truly be said, two or three were met to- 
gether and those appeared to be the lower order of the people. 

From Winchester we proceeded to Southampton, which is 
a very pretty seaport town, and much frequented during the 
summer months as a bathing-place ; and here, for the first 
time in my life, I tried the experiment. It would be delight- 
ful in our warm weather, as well as very salubrious, if such 
conveniences were erected in Boston, Braintree, and Wey- 
mouth, which they might be, with little expense. The 
places are under cover. You have a woman for a guide, a 
small dressing-room to yourself, an oil-cloth cap, a flannel 
gown, and socks for the feet. We tarried only two days at 
Southampton, and went ten miles out of our way in order to 
visit Weymouth, merely for its name. This, like my native 



LETTERS. 331 

town, is a hilly country, a small seaport, with very little busi- 
ness, and wholly supported by the resort of company during 
the summer months. For those persons who have not coun- 
try-houses of their own, resort to the watering-places, as they 
are called, during the summer months, it being too vulgar 
and unfashionable to remain in London. But where the 
object of one is health, that of fifty is pleasure, however far 
they fall short of the object. This whole town is the pro- 
perty of a widow lady. Houses are built by the tenants, and 
taken at life-rents, which, upon the decease of the lessees, 
revert back again to the owner of the soil. Thus is the land- 
ed property of this country vested in lordships and in the 
hands of the rich altogether. The peasantry are but slaves 
to the lord, notwithstanding the mighty boasts they make of 
liberty. Sixpence and sevenpence per day is the usual 
wages given to laborers, who are to feed themselves out of 
the pittance. In travelling through a country, fertile as the 
garden of Eden, loaded with a golden harvest, plenty smiling 
on every side, one would imagine that the voice of Poverty 
was rarely heard, and that she was seldom seen, but in the 
abodes of indolence or vice. But it is far otherwise. The 
money earned by the sweat of the brow must go to feed the 
pampered lord and fatten the greedy bishop, whilst the mis- 
erable, shattered, thatched-roof cottage crumbles to the dust 
for want of repair. To hundreds and hundreds of these 
abodes have I been a witness in my late journey. The 
cheering rays of the sun are totally excluded unless they find 
admittance through the decayed roof, equally exposed to 
cold and the inclement season. A few rags for a bed and a 
jomt stool comprise the chief of their furniture, whilst their 
own appearance is more wretched than one can well conceive. 
During the season of hay and harvest, men, women, and 
children are to be seen laboring in the fields ; but, as this is 
a very small part of the year, the little they then acquire is 
soon expended ; and how they keep soul and body together 
the remainder of the year is very hard to tell. It must be 
owing to this very unequal distribution of property, that the 
poor-rate is become such an intolerable burden. The inhab- 



332 LETTERS. 

itants are very thinly scattered through the country, though 
large towns are well peopled. To reside in and near Lon- 
don, and to judge of the country from what one sees here, 
would be forming a very erroneous opinion. How little 
cause of complaint have the inhabitants of the United States, 
when they compare their situation, not with despotic mon- 
archies, but with this land of freedom ! The ease whh 
which honest industry may acquire property in America, the 
equal distribution of justice to the poor as well as the rich, 
and the personal liberty they enjoy, all, all call upon them 
to support their government and laws, to respect their rulers, 
and gratefully acknowledge their superior blessings, lest 

Heaven in wrath should send them a . 

From Weymouth, our next excursion was to Axminster, 
the first town in the county of Devonshire. It is a small 
place, but has two manufactures of note ; one of carpets, 
and one of tapes ; both of which we visited. The manu- 
factory of the carpets is wholly performed by women and 
children. You would have been surprised to see in how 
ordinary a building this rich manufactory was carried on. 
A few glass windows in some of our barns would be equal | 
to it. They have but two prices for their carpets woven 
here ; the one is eighteen shillings, and the other twenty- 
four, a square yard. They are woven of any dimensions 
you please, and without a seam. The colors are most beau- 
tiful, and the carpets very durable. Here we found Mr. J. 
Cranch. He dined with us, and we drank tea with him. 
This is a curious genius. He is a middle-sized man, of a 
delicate countenance, but quite awkward in his manners. 
He seldom looks one in the face, and seems as if he had 
been cramped and cowed in his youth. In company, one 
is pained for him ; yet he is a man of reading, and an 
accurate taste in the fine arts. Poetry, painting, music, 
sculpture, architecture, all of them have engaged his atten- 
tion. His profession does not seem to' be the object of his 
affections, and he has given up the practice, with an inten- 
tion of pursuing some other employment. He appears to ; 
be a man whose soul wants a wider expansion than his situ- i 



LETTERS. 333 

ation and circumstances allow. Dejected spirits he is very- 
liable to. I do not think him a happy man. His sentiments 
are by no means narrow or contracted ; yet he is one by 
himself. He accompanied us in our journey to Exeter, 
Plymouth, and Kingsbridge. At Exeter, we tarried from 
Saturday till Monday afternoon. Mr. Bowring came to visit 
us. You know him by character. He appears a friendly, 
honest, worthy man, active in business, a warm and zealous 
friend to America, ready to serve his friends, and never 
happier than when they will give him an opportunity of 
doing it. His wife and daughter were on a visit to their 
friends at Kingsbridge, so that we did not see them. He 
requested, however, that we would drink tea with him after 
meeting ; and, as our intention was to see Mr. Cranch's 
brother Andrew, he engaged to get him to his house. The 
old gentleman came with some difficulty, for he is very 
lame and infirm. He seemed glad to see us, and asked 
many questions respecting his brother and sister in America. 
I think he must have had a paralytic stroke, as his speech 
is thick. He has not been able to do any business for a 
number of years, and I believe is chiefly supported by his 
son, who is in the clothier's business with Mr. Bowring. 
Mrs. Cranch, though nearly as old as her husband, is a little 
smart, sprightly, active woman, and is wilted just enough to 
last to perpetuity. She told me that her husband took it 
very hard, that his brother had not written to him for a long 
time. I promised her that he should hear from him before 
long ; and I know he will not let me be surety for him with- 
out fulfilling my engagement. Mr. Cranch's daughter mar- 
ried Mr. Bowring's brother ; they have three sons. She is 
a sprightly woman, like her mother. And Mr. Bowring's 
daughter married a son of Mr. Nathaniel Cranch, so that the 
family is doubly linked together, and what is more, they all 
seem united by the strongest ties of family harmony and 
love. From Exeter, we went to Plymouth ; there we tar- 
ried several days, and visited the fortifications and Plymouth 
dock, and crossed over the water to Mount Edgcombe, a 
seat belonging to Lord Edgcombe. The natural advan- 



334 LETTERS. 

tages of this place are superior to any I have before seen, 
commanding a wide and extensive view of the ocean, the 
whole town of Plymouth, and the adjacent country, with the 
mountains of Cornwall. I have not much to say with re- 
spect to the improvements of art. There is a large park, 
well stocked with deer, and some shady walks ; but there 
are no grottos, statuary, sculpture, or temples. At Ply- 
mouth, we were visited by a Mr. and Mrs. Sawry, with 
whom we drank tea one afternoon. Mr. Sawry is well 
known to many Americans, who were prisoners in Plymouth 
jail during the late war. The money which was raised for 
their relief passed through his hands, and he was very kind 
to them, assisting many in their escape. From Plymouth, 
we made an enterprise one day to Horsham, and, as we 
attempted it in a coach and four, we made a curious piece 
of work, taking by mistake a wrong road, — but this part 
of my story I must reserve for my dear Eliza. 

Our next movement was to Kingsbridge ; but, before I 
relate this, I ought to inform you that we made a stop at 
a place called Ivy Bridge, where we dined ; and Mr. Adams 
accompanied Mr. Cranch to Brook, about three miles dis- 
tant, to visit his uncle, Mr. William Cranch, who has been 
for several years quite lost to himself and friends. There 
is some little property in the hands of the family, who take 
charge of him, sufficient to support a person who has no 
more wants than he has. He appeared clean and comfort- 
able, but took no notice, either of the conversation or per- 
sons. The only thing which in the least roused him was 
the mention of his wife. He appeared to be restless when 
that subject was touched. The character of this man, as 
given by all his friends and acquaintance, leads one to 
regret, in a particular manner, the loss of his intellect. 
Possessed of a genius superior to his station, a thirst for 
knowledge which his circumstances in life permitted him 
not to pursue, most amiable and engaging in his manners, 
formed to have adorned a superior rank in life, fondly at- 
tached to an amiable wife, whom he very soon lost, he fell 
a sacrifice to a too great sensibility ; unable to support the 
shock, he grew melancholy, and was totally lost. 



LETTERS. 335 

But to return to Kingsbridge, the chief resort of the Cranch 
family. We arrived at the inn about six o'clock on Saturday- 
evening. About eight, we were saluted with a ringing of 
bells, a circumstance we little expected. Very soon we 
were visited by the various branches of the Cranch family, 
both male and female, amounting to fifteen persons ; but, as 
they made a strange jumble in my head, I persuaded my 
fellow traveller to make me out a genealogical table, which 
I send you. Mr. and Mrs. Burnell, and Mr. and Mrs. 
Trathan, both offered us beds and accommodations at their 
houses ; but we were too numerous to accept their kind in- 
vitations, though we engaged ourselves to dine with Mr. 
Burnell, and to drink tea with Mr. Trathan, the next day, 
Mrs. Burnell has a strong resemblance to Mrs. Palmer. She 
is a genteel woman, and easy and polite. We dined at a 
very pretty dinner, and after meeting drank tea at the other 
house, Mr. Trathan's. Their houses are very small, but 
every -thing neat and comfortable. Mr. Burnell is a shoe- 
maker, worth five thousand pounds ; and Mr. Trathan a 
grocer, in good circumstances. The rest of the families 
joined us at the two houses. They are all serious, indus- 
trious, good people, amongst whom the greatest family har- 
mony appears to subsist. The people of this county appear 
more like our New England people than any I have met 
with in this country before ; but the distinction between 
; tradesmen and gentry, as they are termed, is widely differ- 
I ent from that distinction in our country. With us, in point 
I of education and manners, the learned professions, and 
i many merchants, farmers and tradesmen, are upon an 
equality with the gentry of this country. It would be 
degrading to compare them with many of the nobility here. 
; As to the ladies of this country, their manners appear to be 
totally depraved. It is in the middle ranks of society, that 
virtue and morality are yet to be found. Nothing does more 
injury to the female character than frequenting public 
places ; and the rage which prevails now for the watering- 
places, and the increased number of them, are become a 
national evil, as they promote and encourage dissipation, 



336 LETTERS. 

mix all characters promiscuously, and are the resort of the 
most unprincipled female characters, who are not ashamed 
to show their faces wherever men dare to go. Modesty and 
diffidence are called ill-breeding and ignorance of the world ; 
an impudent stare is substituted in lieu of that modest de- 
portment, and that retiring grace, which awes whilst it en- 
chants. I have never seen a female model here of such 
vinatfected, modest, and sweetly amiable manners as Mrs. 
Guild, Mrs. E-ussell, and many other American females 
exhibit. 

Having filled eight pages, I think it is near time to hasten 
to a close. Gushing and Folger are both arrived ; by each 
I have received letters from you. A new sheet of paper 
must contain a reply to them. This little space shall assure 
you of what is not confined to time or place, — the ardent 
affection of your sister, 

A. A. 



TO MISS LUCY CRANCH. 

London, 3 October, 1787. 

I THANK you, my dear Lucy, for writing by Mr. Jenks. 

You learnt by Captain Barnard, that I was going a jour- 
ney. I have given your mamma and sister some account 
of my late excursion to Devonshire. We returned horrie 
through Bristol, and took Oxford in our way, from whence 
we went to Woodstock, and visited Blenheim, the seat of 
the Duke of Marlborough, which was built at the public ex- 
pense, and granted by the Crown to the Duke, for the ser- 
vices he had rendered his country. This castle is upon the 
grandest scale of any thing I have ever yet seen. We enter 
the park through a spacious and elegant portal, of the Co- 
rinthian order, from whence a noble prospect is opened to 
the palace, the bridge, the lake, with its valley, and other 
beautiful scenes. The front of this noble edifice, which is 
of stone, is three hundred and forty-eight feet from wing to 



LETTERS. 337 

wing. On the pediment of the south front, towards the 
garden, is a noble bust of Louis the Fourteenth, taken by 
the Duke from the gates of Tournai. This, the gardener 
told us, he never failed pointing out to the French gentle- 
men who visited the place, and that they shrugged their ' 
shoulders and mon-Dieu'd. But, before I describe to you 
the gardens, I will attempt to give you a short, though im- 
perfect account of the palace. It would require a week to 
view it, and a volume to describe it particularly. I will, 
therefore, only collect from my little journal the most re- 
markable objects. 

We entered the palace through a magnificent hall, sup- 
ported by Corinthian pillars. Over the door, going into the 
saloon, is a bust of John, Duke of Marlborough, and two 
statues in bronze, namely, the Venus de' Medici and a Faun. 
The ceiling is painted allegorically, representing Victory 
crowning John, Duke of Marlborough, and pointing to a plan 
of the battle of Blenheim. From the saloon, we pass 
through a suite of rooms, all of them containing a most 
costly and beautiful collection of paintings, many of them 
originals of the first masters. In the dining-room is a fam- 
ily-piece, the present Duke and Duchess, and six of their 
children, by Sir Joshua Reynolds. The furniture of the 
rooms is of different-colored damask. The family being at 
the house, we saw only the lower apartments. The winter 
drawing-room is of tapestry, upon which is represented the 
Cardinal Virtues ; chairs and curtains, white damask. From 
a series of smaller, though magnificent apartments, we 
were suddenly struck at entering the library, which is one 
hundred and eighty-three feet long, and the most costly, as 
well as beautiful place I ever saw. The Doric pilasters are 
of marble, with complete columns of the same, which sup- 
port a rich entablature ; the window frames, the surrounding 
basement of black marble, and the stuccoed compartments 
of the vaulted ceiling, are in the highest taste both of design 
and finishing. There is a person, who always attends at 
these seats, who has by heart the whole history of all that 
is to be seen ; and he makes a very handsome sum of money 

22 



338 LETTERS. 

by it. This library was originally intended as a gallery for 
paintings ; but the late Duke of Marlborough chose to have 
it furnished with the noble collection of Books made by 
Lord Sunderland, his Grace's father, which amounts to 
twenty-four thousand volumes, and is said to be the best 
private collection in England. They are kept under gilt 
wire lattices, and make a superb appearance. At one end 
of the room, is a highly finished marble statue of Queen 
Anne, with this inscription ; " To the memory of Queen 
Anne, under whose auspices John, Duke of Marlborough, 
conquered, and to whose munificence, he and his posterity 
with gratitude owe the possession of Blenheim, in A. D. 
1746." There are two marble busts over the chimney, one 
of Charles, Earl of Sunderland, who collected the books, 
and another of Charles Spencer, Duke of Marlborough ; 
and, at the farther end of the room, is a fine Greek bust of 
Alexander the Great, and fourteen full-length family por- 
traits. From two bow windows in this noble gallery, the 
eye is delighted with a view of the declivity, descending to 
the water, and the gradual ascent of the venerable grove, 
which covers the opposite hill. In short, whether we look 
within or without, all is on the scale of the sublime and the 
beautiful. I must not overlook the chapel, which makes one 
of the wings of the house, and in which there is a proud 
monument, of white marble, to the memory of the renowned 
Duke and Duchess of Marlborough. The group of marble 
figures, large as life, upon this monument, are the Duke and 
Duchess, with two of their sons, who died young. They 
are supported by two figures, Fame and History. The 
altar-piece is the best painting I ever saw ; our Saviour taken 
down from the cross. 

From the house, we visited the gardens ; and here I am 
lost, not in confusion, but amidst scenes of grandeur, mag- 
nificence, and beauty. They are spacious, and include a 
o-reat variety of ground. The plain, or as artists term it, 
the lawn, before the palace, is kept in the most perfect 
order ; not a single spire of grass rises above another. It is 
mowed and swept every other day, and is as smooth as the 



LETTERS. . 339 

surface of a looking-glass. The gardener, who has lived 
twenty-five years upon the place, told us that he employed 
about sixty-three hands during the summer, in mowing, 
sweeping, pruning, lopping, and in ornamenting the grounds. 
From this lawn is a gradual descent to the water, and you 
pass through spacious gravel walks, not in straight lines, as 
Pope expresses it, 

" where each alley has a brother, 
And half the platfuriu just reflects the other; " 

but pleasing intricacies intervene. Through the winding 
paths, and every step, open new objects of beauty, which 
diversified nature affords of hill, valley, water, and woods; 
the gardens finally are lost in the park, amidst a profusion 
of venerable oaks, some of which are said to have stood 
nine hundred years. The gardens are four miles round, 
which I walked ; the park is eleven. There is a magnificent 
bridge consisting of three arches ; the water which it covers, 
is formed into a spacious lake, which flows the whole extent 
of a capacious valley. This was built at the expense of 
Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, as well as a column which 
I shall mention in turn. The gardener, who was very loqua- 
cious and swelled with importance, told us, that since his 
residence there, the present Duke had greatly enlarged and 
improved the grounds; that he had beautified them by the 
addition of some well-placed ornaments, particularly the 
temple of Diana, and a noble cascade, round which are four 
river gods, represented as the guardian genii of the water. 
This celebrated park was first enclosed in the reign of 
Henry the First. His successor, Henry the Second, resided 
at this seat, and erected in this park a palace, and encom- 
passed it with a labyrinth, which was fair Rosamond's bovver, 
celebrated by Addison. There are now no remains of it, 
except a spring at the foot of the hill, which still bears the 
name of Rosamond's Well. This palace is celebrated as 
the birth-place of Edmund, second son of Edward the First, 
and of Edward the Black Prince. Elizabeth was kept a 
prisoner there under the persecutions of Queen Mary ; and 



340 ^ tETTERS. 

it continued to be the residence of kings until the reign of 
Charles the Fi;:st, but it was demolished in succeeding times 
of confusion. There are now two sycamores planted as a 
memorial upon the spot where the old palace stood. The 
column will close my narrative. This is in front of the 
palace of Blenheim at about half a mile distance, and is 
one hundred and thirty feet high ; on the top of which is 
John, Duke of Marlborough, and on which is the following 
inscription, supposed to be written by the late Lord Boling- 
broke. 

" Tlie Castle of Blenheim was founded by Queen Anne, 

In the fourth year of her reign, 

In the year of the Christian era, 1705. 

A monument designed to perpetuate the memory of the 

Signal Victory 

Obtained over the French and Bavarians 

On the banks of the Danube 

By Jolm, Duke of Marlborough ; 

The Hero not only of this nation, but of tliis age ; 

Whose glory was equal in the council and in the field. 

Who, by wisdom, justice, candor, and address, 

Reconciled various, and even opposite interests ; 

Acquired an influence 

Which no rank, no authority can give, 

Nor any force but that of superior vutue ; 

Became the fixed, important centre 

Which united in one common cause 

The principal States of Em'ope. 

Who, by military knowledge and UTCsistible valor, 

In a long series of uninterrupted triumphs, 

Broke the power of France 

When raised the highest, and when exerted the most ; 

Rescued the empire from desolation. 

Asserted and conikmed the hberties of Europe." 

Thus is the gratitude of the nation expressed, and thus do 
the heirs of Marlborough triumph. The present Duke is a 
man of literary pursuits, domestic, and a great astronomer. 
He has a fine observatory and apparatus. From this observ- 
atory he makes signals to Herschel at Windsor, and they 
study the stars together. I have made a very long letter of 
it. I hope it may prove an amusement to you. 

Remember me kindly to all inquiring friends, and believe 
me, my dear niece, 

Your ever affectionate 

A. A. 



LETTERS. 341 



TO JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 
V London, 12 October, 1787. 

MY DEAR SON, 

I CANNOT begin my letter by thanking you for yours. You 
write so seldom that you do not give me the opportunity. 
Yet I think you would feel disappointed if you did not get a 
few lines from me, I congratulate you upon your success 
at Commencement, and, as you have acquired a reputation 
upon entering the stage of the world, you will be no less so- 
licitous to preserve and increase it through the whole drama. 

It is said of Hannibal, that he wanted nothing to the com- 
pletion of his martial virtues, but that, when he had gained 
a victory, he should know how to use it. It is natural to the 
human heart, to swell with presumption, when conscious of 
superior power ; yet all human excellence is comparative, 
and he, who thinks he knows much to-day, will find much 
more still unattained, provided he is still eager in pursuit of 
knowledge. 

Your friends are not anxious that you will be in any dan- 
ger through want of sufficient application, but that a too 
ardent pursuit of your studies will impair your health, and 
injure those bodily powers and faculties upon which the 
vigor of the mind depends. Moderation in all things is con- 
ducive to human happiness, though this is a maxim little 
heeded by youth whether their pursuits are of a sensual or a 
more refined and elevated kind. 

It is an old adage, that a man at thirty must be either a 
fool or a physician. Though you have not arrived at that 
age, you would do well to trust to the advice and experience 
of those who have. Our bodies are framed of such materials 
as to require constant exercise to keep them in repair, to 
brace the nerves, and give vigor to the animal functions. 
Thus do I give you " line upon line, and precept upon pre- 
cept." 

By the time this reaches you, you will have heard of the 



342 LETTERS. 

humiliating condition of Holland. History does not furnish 
a more striking instance of abject submission and depression, 
totally and almost unresistingly conquered by a few Prussian 
troops ; a nation, that formerly withstood the whole power 
and force of Spain, and gave such proofs of bravery and 
prowess as astonished surrounding nations, now humbled to 
the dust by an imperious and haughty woman, backed by the 
troops of Prussia, for a mere trifling affront ; or rather, this 
has been the specious pretence for all the horrors which are 
brought upon the patriots and friends of liberty in Holland. 
May her name descend with eternal obloquy to future ages. 

Poor Dumas and family have lived in a state worse than 
death ; since to exist in constant dread of being dragged a 
victim to an enraged mob, who were constantly threatening 
him and his family with destruction, is worse than death. 
His friends all forsook him, or dared not appear in his be- 
half. He wrote a most afflicting account to your father, and 
begged him to claim protection for him, as acting for the 
United States ; but, as he never had any public chai'acter, 
or, rather, never was commissioned by Congress, it could 
not be done. Mr. Dumas, you know has been engaged in 
the service of France, and has received a salary from that 
government, besides his being opposed to the measures of the 
Stadtholder ; all of which renders him particularly obnoxious 
to the Princess and her party. 

This nation piqued at the treaty of alliance which was last 
winter made between France and Holland, has been ever 
since seeking revenge, by fomenting the troubles in Holland, 
and seized the first opportunity she had in her power, to bully 
France. The death of Vergennes, the deranged state of the 
finances in France, and the dispute between the King and 
his Parliament, all, all have contributed to hasten the down- 
fall of liberty in Holland. England has held a very high 
tone, and given it out, that, if France marched a single man 
to the assistance of Holland, it should be considered as a 
commencement of hostilities ; and, from the conduct of 
France, she appears to have been intimidated and held in 
awe by it. This is another lesson to us not " to put our 



LETTERS. 343 

trust in princes." England, not content with the tame and 
pacific conduct of France, is arming with a zeal and eager- 
ness really astonishing to every person of reflection, who can 
see no object which she can have in view adequate to a com- 
pensation for the horror and distress she must bring upon 
her subjects by the increase of expenses, and the accumula- 
tion of the national debt. 

If I was not present to see and hear it, I could scarcely 
credit that a whole people should not only tamely submit to 
the evils of war, but appear frantic with joy at the prospect ; 
led away by false glory, by their passions and their vices, 
they do not reflect upon past calamities nor approaching 
destruction ; and few of them have better reasons to offer 
for their conduct, than the lady with whom I was in company 
the other day, who hoped there would be a war. " Pray," 
said I, " how can you wish so much misery to mankind ?" 
" 0," said she, " if there is a. war, my brother and several 
of my friends will be promoted." In the general flame, 
which threatens Europe, I hope and pray our own country 
may have wisdom sufficient to keep herself out of the fire. 
I am sure she has been a sufficiently burnt child. Remem- 
ber me to your brothers, if I do not write to them. 
Your ever affectionate mother, 

A. A. 



TO MRS. SHAW. 

Richmond Hill, (N. Y.) 27 September, 1789. 

I WRITE to you, my dear sister, not from the disputed banks 
of the Potomac, the Susquehanna, or the Delaware, but 
from the peaceful borders of the Hudson ; a situation 
where the hand of nature has so lavishly displayed her 
beauties, that she has left scarcely any thing for her hand- 
maid, art, to perform. 

The house in which we reside is situated upon a hill, the 



344 LETTERS. 

avenue to which is interspersed with forest trees, under 
which a shrubbery rather too luxuriant and wild has taken 
shelter, owing to its having been deprived by death, some 
years since, of its original proprietor, who kept it in perfect 
order. In front of the house, the noble Hudson rolls his 
majestic waves, beai;ing upon his bosom innumerable small 
vessels, which are constantly forwarding the rich products 
of the neighbouring soil to the busy hand of a more exten- 
sive commerce. Beyond the Hudson rises to our view the 
fertile country of the Jerseys, covered with a golden har- 
vest, and pouring forth plenty like the cornucopise of Ceres. 
On the right hand, an extensive plain presents us with a 
view of fields covered with verdure, and pastures full of 
cattle. On the left, the city opens upon us, intercepted 
only by clumps of trees, and some rising ground, which 
serves to heighten the beauty of the scene, by appearing to 
conceal a part. In the back ground, is a large flower-gar- 
den, enclosed with a hedge and some very handsome trees. 
On one side of it, a grove of pines and oaks fit for contem- 
plation. 

" In this path 
How long soe'er the wanderer roves, each step 
Shall wake fresh beauties ; each last point present 
A dift'erent picture, new, and yet the same." 

If my days of fancy and romance were not past, I could 
find here an ample field for indulgence ; yet, amidst these 
delightful scenes of nature, my heart pants for the society 
of my dear relatives and friends who are too far removed 
from me. I wish most sincerely to return and pass the re- 
cess of Congress at my habitation in Braintree ; but the 
season of the year, to which Congress has adjourned, ren- 
ders the attempt impracticable. Although I am not the 
only person who questions their making a Congress again 
until April, yet the punctuality of Mr. Adams to all public 
business would oblige him strictly to adhere to the day of 
adjournment, however inconvenient it might prove to him. 
He has never been absent from his daily duty in Senate a 



LETTERS. 345 

single hour from their first meeting ; and the last month's/ 
business has pressed so hard, that his health appears to re- 
quire a recess. 

Shall I ask my sister why she has not written me a line 
since I came to this place ? AVith regard to myself, I own 
I have been cautious of writing. I know that I stand in ai 
delicate situation. I am fearful of touching upon political V 
subjects ; yet, perhaps, there is no person who feels more 
interested in them. And, upon this occasion, I may con- 
gratulate my country upon the late judicial appointments, 
in which an assemblage of the greatest talents and abilities 
are united which any country can boast of; gentlemen in 
whom the public have great confidence, and who will prove 
durable pillars in support of our government. 

Mr. Jefferson is nominated for Secretary of State in the 
room of Mr. Jay, who is made Chief Justice. Thus have 
we the fairest prospect of sitting down under our own vine 
in peace, provided the restless spirit of certain characters, 
who foam and fret, is permitted only its hour upon the 
stage, and then shall no more be heard of, nor permitted to 
sow the seeds of discord among the real defenders of the 
faith. 

Your affectionate sister, 

A. A. 



TO THOMAS BRAND-HOLLIS.l 

New York, 6 September, 1790. 

MY DEAR SIE, 

You ask in one of your letters to Mr. Adams, " What is 
become of Mrs. Adams, that I do not hear from her ? " 

If my heart had not done you more justice than my pen, 
I would disown it. I have so long omitted writing to you, 

^ Tliis letter lias been printed in the Notes to the Memoirs of Thomas 
Brand-HoUis, by Dr. Disney, from wluch it is taken. 



346 LETTERS. 

that my conscience has been a very severe accuser of me. 
But, be assured, my dear Sir, that I never fail to talk of 
you with pleasure, and think of you with affection. I place 
the hours spent ai the Hyde amongst some of the most 
pleasurable of my days, and I esteem your friendship as 
one of the most valuable acquisitions that I made in your 
country ; a country that I should most sincerely rejoice to 
visit again, if I could do it without crossing the ocean. I 
have sometimes been suspected of partiality, for the pre- 
ference which I have given to England ; and, were 1 to live 
out of America, that country would have been my choice. 

I have a situation here, which, for natural beauty, may 
vie with the most delicious spot I ever saw. It is a mile 
and a half distant from the city of New York. The house 
is situated upon an eminence ; at an agreeable distance 
flows the noble Hudson, bearing upon its bosom the fruitful 
productions of the adjacent country. On my right hand, 
are fields beautifully variegated with grass and grain, to a 
great extent, like the valley of Honiton in Devonshire. 
Upon my left, the city opens to view, intercepted, here and 
there, by a rising ground, and an ancient oak. In front, 
beyond the Hudson, the Jersey shores present the exuber- 
ance of a rich, well-cultivated soil. The venerable oaks 
and broken ground, covered with wild shrubs, which sur- 
round me, give a natural beauty to the spot, which is truly 
enchanting. A lovely variety of birds serenade me morn- 
ing and evening, rejoicing in their liberty and security ; for 
I have, as much as possible, prohibited the grounds from 
invasion, and sometimes almost wished for game laws, when 
my orders have not been sufficiently regarded. The par- 
tridge, the woodcock, and the pigeon are too great tempta- 
tions to the sportsmen to withstand. How greatly would it 
add to my happiness to welcome here my much esteemed 
friend. 'T is true, we have a large portion of the blue and 
gold, of which you used to remind me, when you thought 
me an Egyptian ; but, however I might hanker after the 
good things of America, I have been sufficiently taught to 
value and esteem other countries besides my own. 



LETTERS. 347 

You were pleased to inform us, that your adopted family * 
flourished in your soil ; mine has received an addition. 
Mrs. Smith, Mr. Adams's daughter, and the wife of Colonel 
W. Stephens Smith, respecting the name of the great 
literary benefactor of her native state, and in grateful 
remembrance of the friendly attention and patriotic charac- 
ter of its present possessor, has named his new-born son 
Thomas Hollis. She desires me to present to you her 
affectionate remembrance. Mr. Adams is absent upon a 
journey, or he would have written you a letter of a later 
date than that which Mr. Knox is the bearer of. This 
gentleman is a brother of our Secretary of War, and is 
appointed consul to Dublin. He is intelligent, and can 
answer you any question respecting our government and 
politics, which you may wish to ask ; but, if he should not 
see you, I know it will give you pleasure to learn that our 
union is complete, by the accession of Ehode Island ; that 
our government acquires strength, confidence, and stability 
daily ; that peace is in our borders, and plenty in our 
dwellings ; and we earnestly pray, that the kindling flames 
of war, which appear to be bursting out in Europe, may by 
no means be extended to this rising nation. We enjoy 
freedom in as great a latitude as is consistent with our 
security and happiness. God grant that we may rightly 
estimate our blessings. 

Pray remember me, in the most affectionate terms, to 
Dr. Price and to Mrs. Jebb ; and be assured, my dear sir, 
that I am with every sentiment of regard and esteem, 

Yours, &c. 

Abigail Adams. 



^ His trees. The allu.siou is explained in a preceding letter, p. 306 of 
this volume. 



348 LETTERS. 



TO MRS. SMITH. 

Pliiladelpliia, 21 November, 1790. 

MY DEAR, 

I SUPPOSE you wish to hear from me and from your little 
boy. He is very well, and very amusing, as usual ; talks 
of William, and of the other papa ; is as fond as ever of 
the "fosses," and has a great addition to his amusement 
and pleasures from a flock of sheep, which are daily pas- 
tured by a shepherd and his dog upon the lawn in front of 
our house. Bush Hill, as it is called, though by the way 
there remains neither bush nor shrub upon it, and very few 
trees, except the pine grove behind it, — yet Bush Hill is a 
very beautiful place. But the grand and sublime I left at 
Richmond Hill. The cultivation in sight and prospect are 
superior, but the Schuylkill is not more like the Hudson, 
than I to Hercules. The house is better finished within ; 
but, when you come to compare the conveniences for store- 
room, kitchen, closets, &c., there is nothing like it in the 
whole house. As chance governs many actions of my 
life, when we arrived in the city, we proceeded to the 
house. By accident, the vessel with our furniture had 
arrived the day before, and Briesler was taking in the first 
load into a house all green-painted, the workmen there with 
their brushes in hand. This was cold comfort in a house, 
where I suppose no fire had been kindled for several years, 
except in a back kitchen ; but, as I expected many things 
of this kind, I was not disappointed nor discomfited. As 
no wood nor fodder had been provided before-hand, we 
could only turn about, and go to the City Tavern for the 
night. 

The next morning was pleasant, and I ventured to come 
up and take possession ; but what confusion ! Boxes, bar- 
rels, chairs, tables, trunks, &c. ; everything to be arranged, 
and few hands to accomplish it, for Briesler was obliged to 
be at the vessel. The first object was to get fires ; the next 



LETTERS . 349 

to get up beds ; but the cold, damp rooms, the new paint 
&c., proved ahnost too much for me. On Friday we arrive 
here, and late on Saturday evening we got our furniture in 
On Sunday, Thomas was laid up with rheumatism ; or 
Monday, I was obliged to give Louisa an emetic ; on Tues- 
day, Mrs. Briesler was taken with her old pain in her 
stomach ; and, to complete the whole, on Thursday, Polly 
was seized with a violent pleuritic fever. She has been 
twice bled, a blister upon her side, and has not been out of 
bed since, only as she is taken up to have her bed made: 
And every day, the stormy ones excepted, from eleven until 
three, the house is filled with ladies and gentlemen. As all ' 
this is no more nor worse than I expected, I bear it without,' 
repining, and feel thankful that I have weathered it out 
without a relapse, though some days I have not been able 
to sit up. 

Mrs. Bingham has been twice to see me. I think she is 
more amiable and beautiful than ever. I have seen many 
very fine women since I have been here. Our Nancy 
Hamilton is the same unaffected, affable girl we formerly 
knew her. She made many kind inquiries after you ; so 
did Mrs. Bingham. I have not yet begun to return visits, 
as the ladies expect to find me at home, and I have not been 
in a state of health to do it ; nor am yet in a very eligible 
state to receive their visits. I, however, endeavoured to 
have one room decent to receive them, which, with my own 
chamber, is as much as I can boast of at present being in 
tolerable order. The difficulty of getting workmen, Mr. 
Hamilton pleads as an excuse for the house not being ready. 
Mrs, Lear was in to see me yesterday, and assures me that 
I am much better off than Mrs. Washington will be when 
she arrives, for that their house is not likely to be completed 
this year. And, when all is done, it will not be Broadway. 
If New York wanted any revenge for the removal, the 
citizens might be glutted if they would come here, where 
every article has become almost double in price, and where 
it is not possible for Congress, and the appendages, to be 
half so well accommodated for a long time. One would 



350 LETTERS. 



suppose that the people thought Mexico was before them, 
and that Congress were the possessors. 



28 November. Sunday. 

I wrote you thus far on Sunday last. Polly is on the re- 
covery, but your brother Thomas is very ill, and almost help- 
less with the rheumatism. You recollect how he formerly 
had it. It seems as if sickness followed me wherever I go. 
The President got to town on Saturday ; 1 have not yet seen 
him or Mrs. Washington. We have had two severe storms ; 
the last was snow. Poor Mrs. Knox is in great tribulation about 
her furniture. The vessel sailed the day before the first 
storm, and had not been heard of on Friday last. I had a 
great misfortune happen to my best trunk of clothes. The 
vessel sprung a leak, and my trunk got wet a foot high, by 
which means I have several gowns spoiled ; and the one you 
worked is the most damaged, and a black satin ; — the 
blessed effects of tumbling about the world. Adieu. Write 
me soon. Love to all. 

A. A. 



TO MRS. SMITH. 

Bush Hill, 26 December, 1790. 



DEAR CHILD, 



I WOULD tell you that 1 had an ague in my face, and a vio- 
lent toothache, which has prevented my writing to you all 
day ; but I am determined to brave it out this evening, and 
inquire how you do. Without further complaint, I have be- 
come so tender, from keeping so much in a warm chamber, 
that, as soon as I set my foot out, I am sure to come home 
with some new pain or ache. 

On Friday evening last, I went with Charles to the draw- 
ing room, being the first of my appearance in public. The 



LETTERS. 351 

room became full before I left it, and thecircle very brilliant. 
How could it be otherwise, when the dazzling Mrs. Bingham 
and her beautiful sisters were there ; the Misses Allen, and 
Misses Chew; in short, a constellation of beauties? I am 
serious when I say so, for 1 really think them what I describe 
them. Mrs Bingham has certainly given laws to the ladies 
here, in fashion and elegance ; their manners and appear- 
ance are superior to what I have seen. I have been employ- 
ed, for several days last week, in returning visits. Mrs. 
Powell, I join the general voice in pronouncing a very inter- 
esting woman. She is aunt to Mrs. Bingham, and is one of 
the ladies you would be pleased with. She looks turned of 
fifty, is polite and fluent as you please, motherly and friendly. 

I have received many invitations to tea and cards, in the 
European style, but have hitherto declined them, on account 
of my health and the sickness of your brother. I should like 
to be acquainted with these people, and there is no other way 
of coming at many of them, but by joining in their parties ; 
but the roads to and from Bush Hill are all clay, and in open 
weather, up to the horses' knees ; so you may suppose that 
much of my time must be spent at home ; but this, you know, 
I do not regret, nor is it any mortification to me. If I could 
send for you, as usual, and my dear boys, it would add greatly 
to my pleasure and happiness. Mrs. Otis comes frequently, 
and passes the day with me, and yesterday I had the whole 
family to keep Christmas with me. 

The weather is winter in all respects, and such a plain of 
snow puts out my eyes. We have a warm side, as well as 
a cold one, to our house. If there is any thing we can do 
for you, let me know. You cannot regret your separation 
more than I do, for morn, noon, and night, you rest upon the 
mind and heart of your ever affectionate 

A. Adams. 



352 LETTERS. 



TO MRS. SMITH. 

Pliiladelpliia, 8 January, 1791. 

MY DEAR MRS. SMITH, 

I RECEIVED, by Mr. King, your letter of December 30th. 
I am uneasy if I do not hear from you once a week, though 
you have not any thing more to tell me than that you and 
your little ones are well. I think you do perfectly right in 
refusing to go into public during the absence of Colonel 
Smith. The society of a few friends is that from which 
most pleasure and satisfaction are to be derived. Under the 
wing of parents, no notice would be taken of your going into 
public, or mixing in any amusement ; but the eyes of the 
world are always placed upon those whose situation may 
possibly subject them to censure, and even the friendly at- 
tentions of one's acquaintance are liable to be misconstrued, 
so that a lady cannot possibly be too circumspect. I do not 
mention this to you through apprehension of your erring, 
but only as approving your determination, 

I should spend a very dissipated winter, if I were to ac- 
cept of one half the invitations I receive, particularly to the 
routes, or tea and cards. Even Saturday evening is not 
excepted, and I refused an invitation of that kind for this 
evening. I have been to one assembly. The dancing was 
very good; the company of the best kind. The President 
and Madam, the Vice-President and Madam, Ministers of 
State, and their Madams, &c. ; but the room despicable ; the 
etiquette, — it was difficult to say where it was to be found. 
Indeed, it was not New York ; but you must not report this 
from me. The managers have been very polite to me and 
my family. I have been to one play, and here again we 
have been treated with much politeness. The actors came 
and informed us that a box was prepared for us. The Vice- 
President thanked them for their civility, and told them that j 
he would attend whenever the President did. And last 
Wednesday we were all there. The house is equal to most 



LETTERS. 353 

of the theatres we meet with out of France. It is very neat, 
and prettily fitted up; the actors did their best; "The 
School for Scandal " was the play. I missed the divine 
Farren ; but upon the whole it was very well performed. 
On Tuesday next I go to a dance at Mr. Chew's, and on 
Friday sup at Mr. Clymer's ; so you see I am likely to be- 
amused. 

We have had very severe weather for several weeks ; I 
think the coldest I have known since my return from abroad. 
The climate of Old England for me ; people do not grow 
old half so fast there ; two-thirds of the year here, we must 
freeze or melt. Public affairs go on so smoothly here, that 
we scarcely know that Congress are sitting ; North Carolina 
a little delirious, and Virginia trying to give law. They 
make some subject for conversation ; but, after all, the blus- 
ter will scarcely produce a mouse. 

Present me kindly to your mamma and sisters. How I 
long to send for you all, as in days past ; my dear little 
boys, top. As to John, we grow every day fonder of him. 
He has spent an hour this afternoon in driving his grandpapa 
round the room with a willow stick. I hope to see you in 
April. Congress will adjourn in March, and it is thought 
will not meet again till December. 

Good night, my dear. Heaven's blessings alight on you 
and yours, 

A. Adams. 



TO MRS. SMITH. 

Philadelphia, 25 January,. 1791. 

MY DEAR CHILD, 

You must not flatter yourself with the expectation of 
hearing from Colonel Smith until the February packet ar 
rives. It is as soon as you ought to think of it. You see 
by the papers, that a minister is in nomination from Eng- 
land, and Mrs. C writes, will come out soon. Mrs.. 

23 



354 LETTERS. 

from whom I received a letter, writes me by the 



last packet, that Mr. Friere is certainly appointed from Por 

lugal, and that he only waits for the arrival of Count , 

his successor, in England, before he sails for America. 

Mrs. P likewise communicates the agreeable intelli- 

gence of Mr. P 's having forsaken the bottle, and that 

the Countess B had another child, and was vastly 

happy, beloved by her dear Count, &c. ; all in the true style 

of Mrs. P . She desires to be kindly remembered to 

you and the Colonel. 

Present me kindly to all my New York friends. That I 
was attached to that place is most true, and I shall always 
remember with pleasure the fifteen months passed there ; 
but, if I had you and your family, I could be very well 
pleased here, for there is an agreeable society and friend- 
liness kept up with all the principal families, who appear to 
live in great harmony, and we meet at all the parties nearly 
the same company. To-morrow the President dines whh 
us, the Governor, the Ministers of State, and some Senators. 
Of all the ladies I have seen and conversed with here, Mrs. 
Powell is the best informed. She is a friendly, affable, good 
woman, sprightly, full of conversation. There is a Mrs. 
Allen, who is as well bred a woman as I have seen in any 
country, and has three daughters, who may be styled the 
three Graces. 

My best respects to your good mamma and family. Tell 

Mrs. C I hope she makes a very obedient wife. I am 

sure, she will be a good one. I think I shall see you in 
April. Why do you say that you feel alone in the world ? 
I used to think that I felt so too ; but, when I lost my mother, 
and afterwards my father, that " alone " appeared to me in 
a much more formidable light. It was like cutting away 
the main pillars of a building ; and, though no friend can 
supply the absence of a good husband, yet, whilst our 
parents live,, we cannot feel unprotected. To them we can 
apply for advice and direction, sure that it will be given 
v/ith affection and tenderness. We know not what we can 
do or bear, till called to the trial. 1 have passed through 



LETTERS. 355 

many painful ones, yet have enjoyed as much happiness 
through life as usually falls to the lot of mortals ; and, when 
my enjoyments have been damped, curtailed, or molested, 
it has not been owing to vice, that great disturber of human 
happiness, but sometimes to folly, in myself or others, or 
the hand of Providence, which has seen fit to afflict me. I 
feel grateful for the blessings which surround me, and mur- 
mur not at those which are withheld. — But my pen runs 
on, and my lads, at whose table I write, wonder what 
mamma can find to write about. 

Adieu. My love to the children. From your ever affec- 
tionate 

A. Adams. 



TO MRS. SMITH. 

Philadelphia, 21 February, 1791. 



MY DEAR CHILD, 



I RECEIVED yom's of February 13th, and was happy to learn 
that you and your little ones were well. I wrote to you by 
the Chief Justice, and sent your silk by him. He promised 
me to visit you, and from him you will learn how we all are. 
We have had, ever since this month began, a succession of 
bad weather, and, for this week past, the coldest weather 
that I have experienced this winter. The ground is now 
covered with snow. This, if it would last, would let me out 
of my cage, and enable me to go to the assembly on the 
birth-day of the President, which will be on Tuesday, next. 
On Thursday last I dined with the President, in company 
with the ministers and ladies of the court. He was more 
than usually social. I asked him after Humphreys, from 
whom I knew he had received despatches a few days before.- 
He said that he was well, and at Lisbon. When I returned 
home, I told your father that I conjectured Mr. Humphreys 
would be nominated for Lisbon, and the next day the Senate 
received a message, with his nomination, as resident minis- 



356 LETTERS. 

ter at, the Court of Portugal ; the President having received 
official information that a minister was appointed here, Mr. 
Friere, as I before informed you. He asked very affec- 
tionately after you and the children, and at table picked the 
sugar-plums from a cake, and requested me to take them 
for master John. Some suppose, that, if your husband was 
here, he would have the command of the troops which are 
to be raised and sent against the Indians. If such an idea 
as that is in his mind, I am happy that your friend is three 
thousand miles distant. I have no fancy that a man, who 
has already hazarded his life in defence of his country, 
should risk a tomahawk and scalping-knife, where, though 
a conqueror, no glory is to be obtained, though much may 
be lost. I most sincerely hope he may be successful in his- 
private enterprise ; for the way to command Fortune is to 
be as independent of her as possible. 

The equanimity of your disposition will lead you to a 
patient submission to the allotments of Providence. The 
education of your children will occupy much of your time, 
and you will always keep in mind the great importance of 
first principles, and the necessity of instilling the precepts 
of morality very early into their minds. Youth is so imi- 
tative, that it catches at every thing. I have a great opinion 
of Dr. Watts's "Moral Songs for Children." They are 
adapted to their capacities, and they comprehend all the 
social and relative duties of life. They impress the young 
mind with the ideas of the Supreme Being, as their creator, 
benefactor, and preserver. They teach brotherly love, sis- 
terly affection, and filial respect and reverence. I do not 
know any book so well calculated for the early period of 
life ; and they may be made as pleasant to them, by the 
method of instructing, as a hundred little stories, which are 
taught them, containing neither a rule of life, nor sentiment 
worth retaining, such as little John will now run over, of 
" Jack and Jill," and " Little Jack Horner." As a trial of 
their memory, and a practice for their tongues, these may 
be useful, but no other way. 

I am sometimes led to think that human nature is a very 



LETTERS. 357 

perverse thing, and much more given to evil than good. I 
never had any of my own children so much under my eye, 
and so little mixed with other children or with servants, as 
this little boy of yours. Whatever appears is self-taught, 
and, though a very good boy and very orderly, he fre- 
quently surprises me with a new air, a new word, or some 
action, that I should ascribe to others, if he mixed with 
them at all. He is never permitted to go into the kitchen. 
Every day, after dinner, he sets his grandpapa to draw him 
about in a chair, which is generally done for half an hour, 
to the derangement of my carpet and the amusement of his 
grandpapa. 

Remember me affectionately to all inquiring friends. I 
hope to see you ere long. 

Your ever affectionate mother, 

A. Adams. 



TO BIRS, SHAW. 
Bush Hill, (near Philadelphia,) 20 Marcli, 1791. 

MY DEAK SISTER, 

I RECEIVED, by Dr. W , your kind letter of February 

14th. He was very punctual to his commission. He has 
been three times to visit us. He came out this afternoon to 
let me know that he should leave Philadelphia on Tuesday. 
By him I have to thank my dear sister for three letters, and 
to confess myself much in arrears. 'Tis in vain to say 
that I have had a sick family ; that I have had a large'fam- 
ily ; that I have been engaged in company. These are 
poor excuses for not writing ; nor will I exculpate myself 
by alleging that I wanted a subject. My pride would not 
suffer such a plea. What, then, has been the cause ? 
*' Confess freely, and say that it was mere indolence, — 
real laziness," as in truth I fear it has been. Yet con- 
science, that faithful monitor, has reprehended me very, 
very often. I was very sick ; (so sick, that I have not yet 



358 LETTERS. 

recovered the shock I received from it,) for near two months 
before I left New York. When I got to this place, I found 
this house just calculated to make the whole family sick ; 
cold, damp, and wet with new paint. A fine place for an 
invalid ; but, through a kind Providence, I sustained it, 
though others suffered. Happily, after a very tedious two 
months, Thomas recovered so as to get abroad ; but his 
health is now very infirm, and I fear an attendance upon 
two offices through the day, and studying through the even- 
ing at home, is not calculated to mend it. But it is a maxim 
here, that he who dies with studying dies in a good cause, 
and may go to another world much better calculated to im- 
prove his talents, than if he had died a blockhead. Well, 
knowledge is a fine thing, and mother Eve thought so ; but 
she smarted so severely for hers, that most of her daughters 
have been afraid of it since. 

We have had a very severe winter in this State, as you 
may judge when I tell you that we have consumed forty 
cords of wood in four months. It has been as cold as any 
winter we have at the northward. The 17th and 18th of 
this month I dined with all my windows open, put out the 
fires, and ate ice to cool me ; the glasses at 80. This is 
the 20th. Yesterday it snowed nearly the whole day, and 
to-day it is a keen northwester; and I presume it will freeze 
hard to-night. Yet the verdure is beautiful ; full as much 
as I shall find by the middle of May in Massachusetts, 
where I hope then to be. Yet I shall have some regrets at 
leaving this place, just as the season begins to open all its 
beauties upon me. I am told that this spot is very delight- 
ful as a summer residence. The house is spacious. The 
views from it are rather beautiful than sublime; the country 
round has too much of the level to be in my style. The 
appearance of uniformity wearies the eye, and confines the 
imagination. We have a fine view of the whole city from 
our windows ; a beautiful grove behind the house, through 
which there is a spacious gravel walk, guarded by a num- 
ber of marble statues, whose genealogy I have not yet 
studied, as the last week is the first time 1 have visited 



LETTERS. 359 

them. A variety of fine fields of wheat and grass are in 
front of the house, and, on the right hand, a pretty view of 
the Schuylkill presents itself. But now for the reverse of 
the picture. We are only two miles from town, yet have I 
been more of a prisoner this winter than I ever was in my 
life. The road from hence to the pavement is one mile 
and a half, the soil a brick clay, so that, when there has 
been heavy rain, or a thaw, you must wallow to the city 
through a bed of mortar without a bottom, the horses sink- 
ing to their knees. If it becomes cold, then the holes and 
the roughness are intolerable. From the inhabitants of this 
place I have received every mark of politeness and civility. 
The ladies here are well-educated, well-bred, and well- 
dressed. There is much more society than in New York, 
and I am much better pleased and satisfied than I expected 
to be when I was destined to remove here. Adieu. 

Your sister, 

A. A. 



TO MRS. SMITH. 

Qiiiacy, 11 February, 179?. 

MY DEAR DAUGHTER, 

I RECEIVED by way of New York your kind favor of Octo- 
ber 28th and November 8th. I wrote to you by Mrs. Jeff'ry, 
and once since by way of Liverpool. I designed to have 
written by the last vessel, which sailed in December, but I 
waited to see how the election would terminate for Vice- 
President, and the vessel sailed without my letter. Few 
old countries have exhibited more intrigue and falsehood 
than the anti-federal party has done in the late election. The 
Clintonians have been indefatigable with their emissaries in 
propagating falsehoods, and in their efforts to unite all the 
antis in Clinton, that the competitor might be made as for- 
midable as possible ; and in every State where this party 
prevailed, they have been unanimous for Clinton. Several 
of the States were, however, duped by the artifice and lies 



360 LftTTERS. 

of the Jacobins, particularly North Carolina. The cry of 
rights of man, liberty and equality were popular themes. 
Their object was to represent the Vice-President as inimical 
to them, and as a man whose object was to introduce a gov- 
ernment of King, Lords, and Commons, and a hereditary 
nobility. For this purpose they made unfair extracts from 
his writings, upon which they put their own comments. In 
one company in Virginia they roundly asserted that he had 
recommended to Congress to make a son of George the 
Third, King of America. In another, that he was opposed 
to the President, and that all the difficulty which he had 
met with from the Senate originated with him. This story 
the President himself contradicted. Another was, that the 
keeping the door of the Senate shut was wholly owing to 
his influence. In short, there was no end of the arts that 
were used. They tried them upon the New England States, 
but they were spurned at, and ten States, though not the 
most numerous, were unanimous, two votes excepted, in 
favor of the Vice-President. There were a number of 
well-written pieces published in Fenno's Gazette during the 
contest ; but Freneau was the whole time employed by the 
party in publishing the most shameful abuse, and that paper 
was circulated through the Southern States with as much 
assiduity as ever Paine's Rights of Man were by the Revo- 
lution Society in England. This party had another object 
in view. They despaired of destroying Hamilton, unless 
they could remove the present Vice-President, and place in 
his stead the personal enemy of Hamilton. Their object 
was to overturn his funding system and destroy the govern- 
ment. Such is the spirit of a party who hate all order and 
all government. 

In a country where property is so equally distributed ; 
where no clergy fatten upon the spoils of the people ; where 
no nobility exists for the Jacobins to level, but where every 
man, be he ever so poor, is protected by the laws, and not 
a real cause of complaint exists, yet do we daily see in 
embryo all the seeds of discord springing up from an elect- 
ive executive, which, in the course of a few years, will 



1 



LETTERS. 361 

throw this nation into a civil war, and write in letters of 
blood those very truths which one of their best friends has 
forewarned them of, and that at the expense of his present 
popularity. I hope, however, that the period may be so 
distant that neither he nor his children may behold the 
dreadful scene. Since the last election, the President has 
been openly abused in the National Gazette, — abused for 
his levees as an ape of royalty ; Mrs. Washington abused 
for her drawing-rooms ; their celebration of birth-days sneered 
at ; himself insulted because he has not come forward and 
exerted his influence in favor of a further compensation to 
the army. They even tell him that a greater misfortune 
cannot befall a people than for their President to have no 
competitor ; that it infuses into him a supercilious spirit, 
renders him self-important, and creates an idea that one 
man only is competent to govern. They compare him to a 
hyena and a crocodile ; charge him with duplicity and de- 
ception. The President has not been accustomed to such 
language, and his feelings will be wounded, I presume. It 
has been a subject of no small satisfaction to me that the 
bitterest party-writer has never dared to impeach either the 
honor, the honesty, or the integrity of the Vice-President, 
or fix a blemish upon his private character. Though they 
have not been so honest as Robert R, Livingston of New 
York, who said, nothing vexed him so much in all the 
French Revolution and the horrid cruelties they committed, 
as to see the fools by their conduct playing the game into 
the hands of that Mr. Adams, and proving the truth of his 
books. Why, said Benson, to whom the observation was 
made, '* Mr. Adams reads the Scriptures, and he reads there 
that man is as stupid as the wild ass's colt. Mr. Adams 
does not write the Scriptures ; he only reads and believes." 
But enough of this. 

Remember me to all our friends in London and Clapham. 
I fear, if I do not write to him, Mr. HoUis will root me out 
of the Hyde, and substitute some French plant in my room ; 
but tell him I claim a place there, and hold it as one of my 
rights, for I have never ceased to love and respect him, 



362 LSTTERS. 

though I have been much too negligent in assuring him so 
from my pen. And although 1 know we cannot agree in 
politics, we unite in wishing happiness to all mankind. You 
will see by our newspapers the rage for civic feasts, the 
sacrifice of the ox, and the jubilee for the success of the 
French over the Prussians and Austrians. They are citizen 
mad. Time enough for these exultations when they can 
soberly unite in a form of government which will not leave 
one man to prey upon and murder his fellow-creature with 
impunity. When I see them united for their common ben- 
efit, and returning to a sense of justice, wisdom, and virtue, 
then will I rejoice in their prosperity. Until then I mourn 
over them as a devoted people. 

Affectionately yours, 

A. Adams. 



TO MRS. SMITH. 

Quincy, 3 February, 1794. 



MY DEAR MES. SMITH, 



I HAVE not written to you since I received yours of January 
5th. I go from home but very little, yet I do not find my 
time hang heavy upon my hands. You know that I have 
no aversion to join in the cheerful circle, or mix in the 
world, when opportunity offers. I think it tends to rub off 
those austerities which age is apt to contract, and reminds 
us, as Goldsmith says, " that we once were young." Whilst 
our presence is easy to youth, it will tend to guide and 
direct them. 

'■' Be to their faults a little blind, 
Be to their virtues ever kind, 
And fix the padlock on the mind." 

To-morrow our theatre is to open. Every precaution has 
been taken to prevent such unpleasant scenes as you repre- 
sent are introduced upon yours. I hope the managers will 
be enabled to govern the mobility, or the whole design of 
the entertainment will be thwarted. 



I 



LETTERS. 363 

Since I wrote you last, a renewal of the horrid tragedies 
has been acted in France, and the Queen is no more. 

" Set is her star of life ; — the pouring storm 

Turns its black deluge from tliat aching head ; 
The liends of murder quit that bloodless form, 
And the last animating hope is lied. 
" Blest is the hour of peace, tliough cursed the hand 
Which snaps the thread of life's disastrous loom ; 
Thrice blest the great, invincil^le command, 
That deals the solace of the slumbering tomb." 

Not content with loading her with ignominy, whilst living, 
they blacken her memory by ascribing to her the vilest 
crimes. Would to Heaven that the destroying angel might 
put up his sword, and say, " It is enough ; " that he would 
bid hatred, madness, and murder cease. 

" Peace o'er the world her olive branch extend, 
And white-robed Innocence from Heaven descend." 

I wish, most ardently, that every arm extended against 
that unhappy country might be withdrawn, and they left tc^ 
themselves, to form whatever constitution they choose ; 
and whether it is republican or monarchical is not of any 
consequence to us, provided it is a regular government of 1 
some form or other, which may secure the faith of treaties, ' 
and due subordination to the laws, whilst so many govern- 
ments are tottering to the foundations. Even in one of the K 
freest and happiest in the world, restless spirits will aim at \ 
disturbing it. They cry " A lion ! a lion ! " when no real 
dangers exist, but from their own halloo, which in time may 
raise other ferocious beasts of prey. 

I hope to hear from you soon. I wrote to you by Dr. 
Appleton. Your grandmother has been very sick, and is 
still in so poor a way that I have very little expectation of 
her ever going abroad again. She is cheerful and pleasant, 
and loves to hear from her children and grandchildren and 
great grandchildren. She has ever been a woman of exem- 
plary benevolence, a friendly, open, candid mind, with a 
naturally good understanding, and zealously anxious for the 
welfare and prosperity of her family, which she has always 



364 LETTERS. 

promoted by every exertion in her power. Her only anxiety 
seems to be, lest she should live to be a burden to her 
friends ; but this will not be her hard lot. 

Your mother, 

A. Adams. 



TO MRS. SMITH. 

Quiiicy, 8 March, 1794. 

MY DEAR CHILD, 

I RECEIVED your kind letter of February 12th, as well as 
one, by Mr. Storer, of February 2d. I have been every day 
since thinking that I would write to you, but a superior duty 
has occupied all my time for six weeks past. I have been 
only two days (when I was too sick to attend) absent from 
the sick bed of your grandmother. Your desire, that her 
last days might be rendered as comfortable as it is possible 
to make them, has been fulfilled. There has been no atten- 
tion on my part, nor any comfort in my power to render her, 
that she has one moment wanted. She had spent a day 
with me the week she was taken sick. A severe storm had 
prevented me from hearing from her for a couple of days. 
I then learnt that she had a violent cold, as it was supposed. 
I went immediately to see her, and found her sick with a 
lung fever. Her granddaughters have been affectionate, 
tender, and watchful of her, but she has lived all the days of 
her appointed time, and is now ready to depart. Her senses 
are bright and quick, her hearing better than for years past. 
Upon looking back she has no regrets ; upon looking forward 
she has all hope and comfort. Her hourly wish is to be at 
rest. She took her leave of me this evening, with her bless- 
ing upon me and mine to the latest posterity. I told her to- 
day that you desired to be remembered to her. She asked 
me if I thought there was anything, which she had, that you 
would accept of. I answered, that what she had I thought 



i 



LETTERS. 365 

her granddaughters, who were with her, deserved, and that I 
was sure you would vakie her blessing more than any thing 
else. " Well," she replied, " I pray God to bless her and 
her children ; and tell all who belong to me to consider, that 
a virtuous and a religious life is the only solid comfort upon 
a death-bed." She has mourned much, since her sickness, 
that she should never see your father again ; but she now 
seems reconciled to the thought of her approaching dissolu- 
tion, which cannot be far distant. She has no rest, night nor 
day, her cough is so constant and troublesome ; and she can 
take scarcely any nourishment. If she had reached the 17th 
of this month, she would have been eighty-five years old. I 
can say with Pope upon a similar occasion, " that my con- 
stant attendance upon her has indeed affected my mind very 
much, and lessened my desire of long life, since the best that 
can come of it is a miserable benediction." "Nothing,", 
says Seneca, " is so melancholy a circumstance in human ■ 
life, or so soon reconciles us to the thought of our own death, 
as the reflection and prospect of one friend after another 
dropping around us. Who would stand alone, the sole re- 
maining ruin, the last tottering column of all the fabric of 
friendship, seemingly so strong, once so large, and yet so 
suddenly sunk and buried .?" 

Present me kindly to all my friends. In some future 
letter I may notice several things in yours ; but my mind is 
too much solemnized by the scene before me to add any 
thing more, than that I am 

Your affectionate mother, 

A. Adams. 



TO MRS. SMITH. 

Quincy, 10 March, 1794. 

MY DEAE MRS. SMITH, 

Although the scenes in which I have been engaged for six 



366 LETTERS. 

weeks past, have been very different from those which you 
describe, I have been amused and entertained by your ac- 
count. Though I cannot say that I am charmed with your 
hero's personal accomphshments, as you describe them, yet 
you find 

*' A man of wealth is dubbed a man of worth ; 
Venus can give liim form, and Aiistis birth." 

I think our ladies ought to be cautious of foreigners, I 
am almost led to suspect a spy in every strange character. 
It is much too easy a matter for a man, if he has property, to 
get introduced into company, in this country, of the best 
kind, and that without recommendations. The entertain- 
ment you describe was really very curious. 

" Men overloaded with a large estate, 
May spill then* treasure in a queer conceit ; " 

and I am sure this was of that kind. 

You may mix in these scenes, and sometimes join in the 
society ; but neither your habits, your inclination, nor your 
natural disposition are formed for them. By nature you 
have a grave and thoughtful cast of temper, by habit you 
have been trained to more rational and durable pleasures, 
and by inclination you delight more in them. The frivolity 
of the present day has been much increased by our foreign 
connexions. I pray Heaven to preserve us from that disso- 
luteness of manners, which is the bane of society, and the 
destroyer of domestic happiness. I think, with the poet, 

" If indi\idual good engage our hope, v" 

Domestic \'irtues give the largest scope ; 
If plans of public eminence we trace, 
Domestic virtues are its surest base." 

You complain that there is, in the rising generation, a 
want of principle. This is a melancholy truth. I am no 
friend of bigotry ; yet I think the freedom of inquiry, and 
the general toleration of religious sentiments, have been, 
like all other good things, perverted, and, under that shelter, 



I 



LETTERS. 367 

deism, and even atheism, have found refuge. Let us for 
one moment reflect, as rational creatures, upon our " being, 
end, and aim," and we shall feel our dependence, we shall 
be convinced of our frailty, and satisfied that we must look 
beyond this transitory scene for a happiness large as our 
wishes, and boundless as our desires. True, genuine reli- 
gion is calm in its inquiries, deliberate in its resolves, and 
steady in its conduct ; is open to light and conviction, and 
labors for improvement. It studies to promote love and 
union in civil and in religious society. It approves virtue, 
and the truths which promote it, and, as the Scripture ex- 
presses it, " is peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated." It 
is the anchor of our hope, the ornament of youth, the com- 
fort of age ; our support in affliction and adversjty, and the 
solace of that solemn hour, 'which we must all experience. 
Train up, my dear daughter, your children, to a sober and 
serious sense of the duty which they owe to the Supreme 
Being. Impress their infant minds with a respect for the 
Sabbath. This is too much neglected by the rising genera- 
tion. Accustom them to a c'onstant attendance upon public 
worship, 'and enforce it by your own example and precept, 
as often as you can with any convenience attend. It is a 
duty, for which we are accountable to the Supreme Being. 

My pen has again taken a serious turn. I shall not apol- 
ogize for it. Your own letter led to these reflections ; and 
I am sure they flow from a heart anxiously solicitous for 
the happiness of you and yours. That they may make a 
due impression, is the ardent and afl^ectionate wish of 

Your mother, 

A. Adams. 



TO THOMAS B. ADAMS. 

Quincy, 11 February, 1795. 

MY DEAR SON TliOMAS, 

When you address me again, let it be by the endearing 
epithet of Mother, instead of the formal one, — Madam. I 



368 tETTERS. 

should have thought your partiality for your friends, the 
Quakers, would have prevented your substituting any other 
epithet. And now I have, in a few words, settled a point 
respecting titles ; a subject which has occupied a great Legis- 
lature for many days, and occasioned much warmth and 
heat, the Madisonian party insisting that previous to natural- 
ization all foreigners should renounce their titles ; the other 
party contending that it was the privileges annexed to titles 
which rendered them of consequence ; that by the Amer- 
ican Constitution no man could hold a title ; that naturaliza- 
tion excluded him from titles as an American ; and that it 
was childish for that House to cavil at the name of Baron, 
Duke, or Lord, or Bishop, which could have no effect here, 
and that obliging a man to renounce them might affect his 
interest in other countries, where estates were frequently 
annexed to titles. Upon this the yeas and nays were called 
for. This occasioned much warmth, as it was then consid- 
ered as an act to fix a stigma upon those who considered 
the subject too trifling in itself to occupy the House. But 
knowing the aversion in the Americans to the " bugbear," 
it was supposed to be done to create a new alarm, and 
raise a cry of aristocracy against all who opposed the mo- 
tion. The vote was, however, insisted upon and taken, and 
northern and southern pitted against each other — 58 ayes, 
32 nays. 

I feel your embarrassment in a foreign country, the lan- 
guage of which you cannot speak. I know by experience 
how unpleasant it is, but that is a difficulty which will daily 
diminish. I rejoice that you are with your brother. I am 
sure either of you alone must have been triste. England 
you know, is the country of my greatest partiality. Hol- 
land appeared to me such a place of still life, Amsterdam 
and Rotterdam excepted, that I thought I could not be recon- 
ciled to become an inhabitant of it ; and I perfectly assented 
to Sir William Temple's character of it, that it was a coun- 
try where the " earth is better than the air, and profit more 
in request than honor ; where there is more sense than wit, 
and more wealth than pleasure, more good nature than 



LETTERS. 369 

good humor, where a man would choose rather to travel 
than to live ; where he would find more things to observe 
than to desire, and more persons to esteem than to love." 
Although 'tis near a century since this character was 
drawn, you will soon perceive that it need not sit for a new 
likeness. You will find many things in the country well 
worthy your attention : some of those which I particularly 
remember, and which I would recommend to your notice. 
The statue of Erasmus upon the great bridge in the grand 
market-place at Rotterdam is one of them ; and, indeed, 
Rotterdam itself is a curiosity. The spaciousness of the 
streets and the elegance of the houses surpass those at Am- 
sterdam. The sight of houses, masts of ships, and tops of 
trees, promiscuously huddled together, is at once novel and 
romantic. If you had any opportunity, whilst in England, 
to visit any of the celebrated gardens and pleasure-grounds, 
were it only those within a few miles of the city, such as 
Osterley Place, Sion House, or Tilney House, they would 
give you a thorough disgust to the style of gardening in 
Holland, where 

" Grove nods to grove, each alley has a brother, 
And half the platform just reflects the other." 

And yet you will find much expense. These walks are all 
a soft sand, instead of the hard gravel of England. An 
object which struck me with the true sublime, was my ride 
from the Hague to Scheveling. The straight road and fine 
trees are pleasing, but at the end the broad ocean opens 
suddenly upon you, when you have no suspicion of it, and 
creates a most pleasing sensation. In the Prince of Or- 
ange's cabinet, at the Hague, I thought there was the neat- 
est, though not the largest, collection of curiosities which I 
had met with, and, according to the custom of the country, 
preserved in the nicest manner. In the little room called 
the study is a fine collection of paintings by Dutch and 
Flemish masters. 

There was one by Potter which you may have heard me 
mentibn. It is a rural scene, cattle drinking, and their 

24 



370 LETTERS. 

shadows reflected in the water. The flies upon the cows 
seem alive ; and a toad, sitting upon the grass, is equally 
excellent. 

Leyden, Utrecht, Haerlem, all have monuments of art, 
worthy a stranger's notice ; and the painted glass in the win- 
dows in a church at Gorcum are a great curiosity. All 
these and many others which I visited I can traverse again 
with you ; and it renews the pleasure to recite it to one who 
is going to enjoy the same gratifications. 

If the French get possession of Holland, I hope they will 
not continue to war with the fine arts as they have done. 
As you will see your brother's letter, you will learn domes- 
tic occurrences from that. Present my respects to old Mr. 
Dumas, to the Willinks families, and to all others who 
recollect 

Your ever affectionate Mother. 



TO THOMAS B. ADAMS. 

Quincy, 8 November, 1796. 

■MY DEAR SON, 

I HAVE just received your letter sent by the General Green, i^ 
Capt. Sheldon, via Rhode Island, dated August 27th. I be- 
lieve I have scarcely lost a letter from you or your brother, 
notwithstanding the many hazards and chances to which 
they have been liable. Accept my thanks for your last 
communications. 

I rejoice at the return of your health, strength and spirits; 
and most sincerely wish that your constitution may be 
mended by the ordeal you have passed. 

I have much upon my mind which I could say to you ; 
prudence forbids my committing it to writing. At this 
eventful period, I can judge of your solicitude to learn 
through a channel upon which you could depend, whatever 
affects the interests of our country. In a quotation from 



LETTERS. 371 

the Chronicle you cannot expect truth. Falsehood and 
malevolence are its strongest features. It is the offspring 
of faction, and nursed by sedition, the adopted bantling of 
party. It has been crying monaichy and aristocracy, and 
vociferating anathemas against the " Defence," as favouring 
monarchy ; and making quotations of detached sentences, 
as the atheist endeavoured to prove from Scripture that 
" there is no God," by omitting, " the fool hath said in his 
heart." 

One writer asserts, that " Mr. Adams has immortalized 
himself as an advocate for hereditary government, as much 
as Mr. Jefferson has distinguished himself, in and out of 
office, as a true republican. Mr. Adams has sons placed in 
high offices, and who are, no doubt, understood to be what 
he calls the well-born, and who, following his own principle, 
may, as he hopes, one time become the seigneurs or lords 
of this country. Mr. Jefferson has daughters only, and had 
he the wish, has no male successor." 

By such false and glaring absurdities do these miserable 
beings endeavour to deceive and delude the people into a 
distrust of their most disinterested friends, the real guardians 
of their liberties and defenders of their privileges. 

I feel anxious for the fate of my country. If the admin- 
istration should get into hands which would depart from the 
system under which we have enjoyed so great a share of 
peace, prosperity and happiness, we should soon be involved 
in the wars and calamities which have deluged other nations 
in blood. We should soon become a divided and a miser- 
able people. I have been so long a witness to the scenes 
which have been acted for years past, and know too well 
what must be endured, to have any other sensations, when 
I look to an elevated seat, than painful solicitude and anx- 
iety. It is a mark at which envy, pride and malevolence 
will shoot their envenomed arrows. Joy dwells in these 
dear silent shades at Quincy ; and domestic pleasures, in 
peace and tranquillity. If I should be called to quit you, 
'with what regret shall I part from you. 

I feel perhaps too keenly the abuse of party. Washing- 



372 LETTERS. 

ton endured it ; but he had the support of the people and 
their undiminished confidence to the hour of his resigna- 
tion, and a combination of circumstances which no other 
man can look for. First, a unanimous choice. Secondly, 
personally known to more people by having commanded 
the armies, than any other man. Thirdly, possessed of a 
large landed estate. Fourthly, refusing all emoluments of 
office both in his military and civil capacity. Take his 
character all together, and we shall not look upon his like 
again ; notwithstanding which, he was reviled and abused, 
his administration perplexed, and his measures impeded. 
What is the expected lot of a successor ? He must be 
armed as Washington was with integrity, with firmness, 
with intrepidity. These must be his shield and his wall of 
brass ; and religion too, or he never will be able to stand 
sure and steadfast. Dr. Priestley, in a dedication of some 
sermons which he delivered last winter, and which he dedi- 
cated to the Vice President of the United States, observes 
to him, " that religion is of as much use to a statesman as 
to any individual whatever ; for Christian principles will 
best enable men to devote their time, their lives, their tal- 
ents, and what is often a greater sacrifice, their characters, 
to the public good ; and in public life, he observes, this will 
often be in a great measure necessary. Let a main attain 
to eminence of any kind, and by whatever means, even the 
most honorable, he will be exposed to envy and jealousy. 
And of course he must expect to meet with calumny and 
abuse. What principles can enable a man to consult the 
real good of his fellow citizens without being diverted from 
his generous purpose by a regard to their opinion concern- 
ing him, like those of the Christian who can be satisfied 
with the approbation of his own mind, and who, though not 
insensible to due praise, can despise calumny, and steadily 
overlooking every thing which is intermediate, patiently 
wait for the day of final retribution .? " 
Thus says the Poet ; 

" Fame for good deeds is the reward of virtue ; 
Thirst after fame is given us by the gods 



LETTERS. 373 

Both to excite our minds to noble acts, 
And give a proof of some immortal state, 
Where we shall know that Fame we leave behind, 
That highest blessing which the gods bestow." 

As I consider it one of my chief blessings to have sons 
worthy of the confidence of their country, so I hope, in 
imitation of their father, they will serve it with honor and 
fidelity, and with consciences void of offence ; and though 
they may sometimes meet with ingratitude, they will have 

" The soul's calm sunsliine and the heart-felt joy." 

Adieu, my dear son. I hope to see you in the course of 
another year. Time, which improves youth, every year 
furrows the brow of age. 

^' Our years 
As life declines, speed rapidly away ; 
And not a year but pilfers, as he goes, 
Some youthful grace that age would gladly keep, 
A tooth or auburn lock." 

Thus, my son, in the course of three years' absence, you 
will find many depredations of time upon those whom you 
left advanced in life, and in none more, perhaps, than in 
your mother, whose frequent indispositions hasten its strides 
and impair a frail fabric. But neither time, absence nor 
sickness have lessened the warmth of her affection for her 
dear children, which will burn with undiminished fervour 
until the lamp of life is extinguished together with the 
name of 

Abigail Adams. 



TO JOHN ADAMS. 

Quincy, 8 February, 1797. 



y 



" The sun is dressed in brightest beams, \J 

To give thy honors to the day." 



And may it prove an auspicious prelude to each ensuing * 



374 LUTTERS. 

season. You have this day to declare yourself head of a 
nation. " And now, Lord, my God, thou hast made thy 
{ servant ruler over the people. Give unto him an under- 
' standing heart, that he may know how to go out and come 
in before this great people ; that he may discern between 
good and bad. For who is able to judge this thy so great a 
people?" were the words of a royal sovereign ; and not less 
applicable to him who is invested with the chief magistracy 
of a nation, though he wear not a crown, nor the robes of 
royalty. 

My thoughts and my meditations are with you, though 
personally absent ; and my petitions to Heaven are, that 
^ " the things which make for peace may not be hidden from 
your eyes." My feelings are not those of pride or ostenta- 
tion, upon the occasion. They are solemnized by a sense 
of the obligations, the important trusts, and numerous duties 
connected with it. That you may be enabled to discharge 
them with honor to yourself, with justice and impartiality to 
your country, and with satisfaction to this great people, shall 
be the daily prayer of your 

A. A. 



MRS. JAMES WARREN TO MRS. ADAMS. 

Plymouth, 27 February, 1797. 

It can be of little consequence to you, my dear Madam, 
whether your late adventure with me amounts to eight thousand 
dollars or only eight shillings. Yet it is my duty to let you 
know how it stands and to take your commands either to vest 
you again as an adventurer in the next class or remit to your 
order the sum of eight and fourpence. As I think it always 
best to rise in our subject instead of sinking from great to 
small things, my gratulations on Mr. Adams's elevation to the 
Presidential chair are secondary to my condolence, and may 
form a perfect contrast to your ill success in Harvard College 
lottery. The one, a small stake in a most precarious 



LETTERS. 375 

game — the other, the best card in the pack. A second 
throw could make no addition but a crown, and that you have 
too much understanding and knowledge of the world to sup- 
pose it could enhance your happiness. I hope we shall meet 
again before you take up your residence in a southern clime. 

Was I a courtier, I could say many pretty things on the 
present occasion both to you and to Mr. Adams — but his old 
friend will only observe, in her usual style of correspondence, 
that she sincerely wishes peace, prosperity and virtue may 
pervade the United States under his Administration — and 
may you, my dear. Madam, feel no interruption of health nor 
any of those circumstances in human life, tenfold more pain- 
ful, that might impede the tide of prosperity in which you 
have long sailed. 

The bearer of this will wait on you next Tuesday for an 
answer to this, or any other commands you may have for 
your assured friend and 

Humble servant, 

Mercy Warren. 



TO MRS. WARREN. 

Quincy, 4 March, 1797. 

MY DEAR MADAJM, 

I RECEIVED yesterday your obliging favor of February 27. 
I have been so little a favorite of fortune that I never once 
examined my numbers by the newspapers or other ways, 
concluding that those who were equally interested would take 
proper care for me. As I had formed no expectations, I met 
with no disappointment, and am quite pleased that my ad 
venture should be appropriated to the promotion of science 
and literature. The ^qw shillings in your hands be so kind 
to lay out in the purchase of some little books, and present 
them for me to the lovely Marcia — as a token of approbation 
of the sweet, engaging simplicity of manners which were so 
conspicuous in her. 



376 BETTERS. 

For your congratulations upon a late important event ac- 
cept my acknowledgments. Considering it as the voluntary 
and unsolicited gift of a free and enlightened people, it is a 
precious and valuable deposit and calls for every exertion 
of the head and every virtue of the heart to do justice to so 
sacred a trust. Yet, however pure the intentions or upright 
the conduct, offences will come, 

" High stations tumult but not bbss create." 

As to a crown, my dear Madam, I will not deny that there 
is one which I aspire after and in a country where envy 
can never enter to plant thorns beneath it. The fashion 
of this world passeth away — I would hope that I have not 
lived in vain, but have learnt how to estimate and what value 
to place upon the fleeting and transitory enjoyment of it. I 
shall esteem myself peculiarly fortunate, if, at the close of 
my public life, I can retire esteemed, beloved and equally 
respected with my predecessor. 

Old friends can never be forgotten by me. In that number 
I have long been accustomed to consider the General and 
Mrs. Warren. It will always give me pleasure to see them 
at this house or wherever else they may meet their friend 
and humble servant. 

A. Adams. 



TO JOHN ADAMS. 

Quincy, 26 April, 1797. 

MY DEAREST FRIEND, 

This, I hope, is the last letter whicli you will receive from 
me at Quincy. The funeral rites performed, I prepare to 
set out on the morrow. I long to leave a place, where 
every scene and object wears a gloom, or looks so to me. 
My agitated mind wants repose. I have twice the present 
week met my friends and relatives, and taken leave of them 
in houses of mourning. I have asked, " Was all this neces- 



LETTERS. 377 

sary to wean me from the world ? Was there clanger of 
my fixing a too strong attachment upon it ? Has it any 
allurements, which could make me forget, that here I have 
no abiding-place ? " All, all is undoubtedly just and right. 
Our aged parent is gone to rest. ^ My mind is relieved 
from any anxiety on her account. I have no fears lest she 
should be left alone, and receive an injury. I have no ap- 
prehensions, that she should feel any want of aid or assist- 
ance, or fear of becoming burdensome. She fell asleep, 
and is happy. 

Mary,^ in the prime of life, when, if ever, it is desirable, 
became calm, resigned, and willing to leave the world. 
She made no objection to her sister's going, or to mine, but 
always said she should go first. 

I have received your letters of April 16th and 19th. I 
want no courting to come. I am ready and willing to follow 
my husband wherever he chooses ; but the hand of Heaven 
has arrested me. Adieu, my dear friend. Excuse the mel- 
ancholy strain of my letter. From the abundance of the 
heart the stream flows. 

Affectionately yours, 

A. Adams. 



TO MRS. WARREN. 

Philadelphia, 17 June, 1798. 

You and I, my dear Madam, have trod together through 
one gloomy scene of war, havoc and desolation ; and we 
have seen our country rise superior to oppression and des- 
potism, and take its rank among the nations, presenting at 
this period the only spectacle of a free republic which has 
not been revolutionized by the gormandizing and insatiable 

' The mother of Mr. Adams, who survived the iUness described in a pre- 
ceding letter, died at this time, at the age of eighty-eight. 
2 A niece of the vTiter. 



378 LETTERS. 

thirst of that power which, like the grave, cries give, give, 
whilst the departed wealth, opulence and liberty of Batavia, 
the cruelly oppressed Geneva, Genoa, all Italy, and the par- 
titioned and bartered Venice, with the barbarously sacrificed 
Switzerland and Berne, cry to us with an awful warning 
voice to behold their fate, and secure ourselves by a direct 
opposite conduct to that which has proved fatal to them. I 
would hope that the destroying angel may not be commis- 
sioned to visit us in wrath, but that he may visit us on an 
errand of love to warn us against those contaminating prin- 
ciples and abominations which have made all Europe one 
Golgotha. May the God of our fathers protect us, and if 
we must be scourged, remember mercy for us. 

You observe, " that Providence has deposited a high trust 
in the hands of the President, and that it is optional with 
him from the confidence reposed in him by the people to 
abuse his power, or to continue the object for which our 
country has made such costly sacrifices." 

Hastening to that period, which in Scripture is termed 
the life of man, having every thing at stake which can ren- 
der the remnant peaceful or the future happy, reputation 
and honor, life, liberty and property, is it possible to have a 
wish or desire which is not interwoven with the present and 
future prosperity, freedom and independence of United 
America? It depends upon the people to say that they will 
remain a free and happy republic. Permit me to transcribe 
a sentence from an answer to an address presented by the 
inhabitants of the county of Otsego, in the state of New 
York: 

*' Your reliance on the good sense, fortitude and integrity 
of your fellow citizens, I trust, will not deceive you. All 
depends upon these virtues. If these fail us we are lost. 
Our constitution and administration all depend upon them. 
Our government without these aids has no power at home 
or abroad. We have no other principle of union or capacity 
of defence." 

In another reply to the people of Pottstown, in Pennsyl- 
vania, are these words : 



LETTERS. 379 

" Your confidence that I will not surrender the rights of 
the nation shall not be betrayed. If the nation were capable 
of such a surrender, (which it is not,) some other hand 
must affix the signature to the ignominious deed." 

With these sentiments will my friend live, and with these 
sentiments he will, like the brave avoyer, Steigner of Berne, 
meet death, if decreed to him. 

The stay of our envoys in France is protracted to an 
alarming degree for their personal safely, and I had almost 
said for our national honor. The decree of the Directory 
respecting neutrals, and the declaration of Talleyrand that 
we could only huy it off, ought to have been the signal for 
the departure of our envoys. The cup of humiliation was 
full. What has since happened are its overflowings. They 
have borne it ! but the indignation of their country spurns 
it. I enclose to you the last despatch. Heaven grant that 
it may be the last. 

The testimonials in approbation of the measures pursued 
by the chief magistrate of the Union with respect to France, 
which," as you observe, have poured in from all quarters of 
the Union are indeed an encouraging and grateful reward for 
his laborious and hazardous exertions in the public service. 
Whilst the rising generation upon whom the hopes and 
expectations of all America are fixed for its security and 
defence, are zealous and sincere with their proffered lives 
and fortunes, their fathers may be permitted to repose, hav- 
ing performed their routine of active duty, and to spend the 
remnant of their days in devout supplications for the success 
of their offspring. 

The President directs me to reciprocate the kind wishes of 
his friend General Warren and to assure him that he retains 
a pleasing remembrance of the part they have acted together 
in the defence of the liberties of their common country. 

Mr. and Mrs. Otis the elder and junior are both well, and 
were with us last evening. I most ardently long for a visit 
to Quincy. The green fields and shady groves would be a 
pleasing contrast to the brick walls and crowded streets of 
Philadelphia, particularly so, if I could shut out all the polit- 
ical clouds which darken our horizon. 



380 LflTTERS. 

With a kind remembrance to every branch of your family, 
particularly the little Marcia, I am, my dear Madam, 
Your friend and humble servant, 

Abigail Adams. 



TO THOMAS B. ADAMS. 

Washington, 13 November, 1800. 

Well, my dear son. South Carolina has behaved as your 
father always said she would. The consequence to us, 
personally, is, that we retire from public life. For myself 
and family, I have few regrets. At my age, and with my 
bodily infirmities, I shall be happier at Quincy. Neither 
my habits, nor my education or inclinations have led me to 
an expensive style of living, so that on that score I have 
little to mourn over. If I did not rise with dignity, I can at 
least fall with ease, which is the more difficult task. I wish 
your father's circumstances were not so limited and circum- 
scribed, as they must be, because he cannot indulge himself 
in those improvements upon his farm, which his inclination 
leads him to, and which would serve to amuse him, and 
contribute to his health. I feel not any resentment against 
those who are coming into power, and only wish the future 
administration of the government may be as productive of 
the peace, happiness, and prosperity of the nation, as the 
two former ones have been. I leave to time the unfolding 
of a drama. I leave to posterity to reflect upon the times 
past ; and I leave them characters to contemplate. My own 
intention is to return to Quincy as soon as I conveniently 
can ; I presume in the month of January. 

Governor Davie arrived yesterday with the treaty. Judge 
Ellsworth was landed in England for the benefit of his 
health. The public curiosity will be soon satisfied. Peace 
with France, — a revenue increased beyond any former 
years, — our prospects brightening upon every side. What 



LETTERS. . 381 

must be the thoughts and the reflections of those, who, call- 
ing themselves Federalists, have placed their country in a 
situation full of dangers and perils ; who have wantonly- 
thrown away the blessings Heaven seemed to have in re- 
serve for them ? The defection of New York has been the 
source. That defection was produced by the intrigues of 
two men. One of them sowed the seeds of discontent and 
division amongst the Federalists, and the other seized the 
lucky moment of mounting into power upon the shoulders 
of Jefferson. The triumph of the Jacobins is immoderate, 
and the Federalists deserve it. It is an old and a just pro- 
verb, " Never halloo until you are out of the woods." So 
completely have they gulled one another by their Southern 
promises, which have no more faith, when made to North- 
ern men, than lover's vows. 

I have not heard from New York since I wrote you last. 
I am, my dear Thomas, 

Your ever affectionate mother, 

A. Adams. 



TO MRS. SMITH. 

Wasliington, 21 November, 1800. 



MY DEAR CHILD, 



I ARRIVED here on Sunday last, and without meeting with 
any accident worth noticing, except losing ourselves when 
we left Baltimore, and going eight or nine miles on thej 
Frederick road, by which means we were obliged to go thel 
other eight through woods, where we wandered two hours 
without finding a guide, or the path. Fortunately, a strag- 
gling black came up with us, and we engaged him as a 
guide, to extricate us out of our difficulty ; but woods are 
all you see, from Baltimore until you reach tlie city, which 
is only so in name. Here and there is a small cot, without 
a glass window, interspersed amongst the forests, through j 
which you travel miles without seeing any human being. 



382 LETTERS. 

In the city there are buildings enough, if they were com- 
pact and finished, to accommodate Congress and those at- 
tached to it ; but as they are, and scattered as they are, I 
see no great comfort for them. The river, which runs up 
to Alexandria, is in full view of my window, and I see the 
vessels as they pass and repass. The house is upon a grand 
and superb scale, requiring about thirty servants to attend 
and keep the apartments in proper order, and perform the 
ordinary business of the house and stables ; an establish- 
ment very well proportioned to the President's salary. The 
lighting the apartments, from the kitchen to parlors and 
chambers, is a tax indeed ; and the fires we are obliged to 
keep to secure us from daily agues is another very cheer- 
ing comfort. To assist us in this great castle, and render 
less attendance necessary, bells are wholly wanting, not 
one single one being hung through the whole house, and 
promises are all you can obtain. This is so great an in- 
convenience, that I know not what to do, or how to do. 
The ladies from Georgetown and in the city have many of 
them visited me. Yesterday I returned fifteen visits, — but 
such a place as Georgetown appears, — why, our Milton is 
beautiful. But no comparisons ; — if they will put me up 
some bells, and let me have wood enough to keep fires, I 
design to be pleased. I could content myself almost any- 
where three months; but, surrounded with forests, can you 
believe that wood is not to be had, because people cannot 
be found to cut and cart it ! Briesler entered into a con- 
jtract with a man to supply him with wood. A small part, 
•a few cords only, has he been able to get. Most of that 
was expended to dry the walls of the house before we came 
in, and yesterday the man told him it was impossible for 
(him to procure it to be cut and carted. He has had re- 
course to coals ; but we cannot get grates made and set. 
We have, indeed, come into a new country. 
' You must keep all this to yourself, and, when asked how 
I like it, say that I write you the situation is beautiful, which 
is true. The house is made habitable, but there is not a 
single apartment finished, and all withinside, except the 



LETTERS. 383 

plastering, has been done since Briesler came. We have 
not the least fence, yard, or other convenience, without, 
and the great unfinished audience-room I make a drying- 
room of, to hang up the clothes in. The principal stairs 
are not up, and will not be this winter. Six chambers are 
made comfortable ; two are occupied by the President and 
Mr. Shaw ; two lower rooms, one for a common parlor, 
and one for a levee-room. Up stairs there is the oval room, 
which is designed for the drawing-room, and has the crim- 
son furniture in it. It is a very handsome room now ; but,] 
when completed, it will be beautiful. If the twelve years, 
in which this place has been considered as the future seat, 
of government, had been improved, as they would have' 
been if in New England, very many of the present incon- 
veniences would have been removed. It is a beautiful spot, 
capable of every improvement, and, the more I view it, the 
more I am delighted with it. 

Since I sat down to write, I have been called down to a 
servant from Mount Vernon, with a billet from Major Custis, 
and a haunch of venison, and a kind, congratulatory letter 
from Mrs. Lewis, upon my arrival in the city, with Mrs. 
Washington's love, inviting me to Mount Vernon, where, 
health permitting, I will go, before I leave this place. 

The Senate is much behind-hand. No Congress has yet 

been made. 'Tis said is on his way, but travels 

with so many delicacies in his rear, that he cannot get on 
fast, lest some of them should suffer. 

Thomas comes in and says a House is made ; so to-mor- 
row, though Saturday, the President will meet them. Adieu, 
my dear. Give my love to your brother, and tell him he is 
-ever present upon my mind. 

Afiectionately your mother, 

A. Adams. 



384 LETTERS. 



TO MRS. SMITH. 

Washington, 27 November, 1800. 



MY DEAB CHILD. 



I RECEIVED your letter by Mr. Pintard. Two articles we 
are much distressed for ; the one is bells, but the more im- 
portant one is wood. Yet you cannot see wood for trees. 
No arrangement has been made, but by promises never per- 
formed, to supply the new-comers with fuel. Of the pro- 
mises Briesler had received his full share. He had procured 
nine cords of wood ; between six and seven of that was kindly 
burnt up to dry the walls of the house, which ought to have 
been done by the commissioners, but which, if left to them, 
would have remained undone to this day. Congress poured 
in, but shiver, shiver. No woodcutters nor carters to be had 
at any rate. We are now indebted to a Pennsylvania wag- 
gon to bring us, through the first clerk in the Treasury Office, 
one cord and a half of wood, which is all we have for this 
house, where twelve fires are constantly required, and where, 
I we are told, the roads will soon be so bad that it cannot be 
\ drawn. Briesler procured two hundred bushels of coals or 
I we must have suffered. This is the situation of almost every 
*^person. The public officers have sent to Philadelphia for 
woodcutters and waggons. 

You will read in the answer of the House to the President's 
Speech a full and explicit approbation of the Administration ; 
a cooperation with him equal to his utmost expectations ; 
this passed without an amendment or any debate or squabble, 
and has just now been delivered by the House in a body. 
The vessel which has my clothes and other matters is not 
arrived. The ladies are impatient for a drawing-room ; I 
have no looking-glasses but dwarfs for this house ; nor a 
twentieth part lamps enough to light it. Many things were 
stolen, many more broken, by the removal ; amongst the 
number, my tea china is more than half missing. George- 



LETTERS. 385 

town affords nothing. My rooms are very pleasant and 
warm whilst the doors of the hall are closed. 

You can scarce believe that here in this wilderness city, I 
should find my time so occupied as it is. My visiters, some 
of them, come three and four miles. The return of one of 
them is the work of one day ; most of the ladies reside in 
Georgetown or in scattered parts of the city at two and three 
miles distance. Mrs. Otis, my nearest neighbour, is at lodg- 
ings almost half a mile from me ; Mrs. Senator Otis, two 
miles. 

We have all been very well as yet ; if we can by any 
means get wood, we shall not let our fires go out, but it is at 
a price indeed ; from four dollars it has risen to nine. Some 
say it will fall, but there must be more industry than is to be 
found here to bring half enough to the market for the con- 
sumption of the inhabitants. 

With kind remembrance to all friends, 

I am your truly affectionate mother, 

A. A. 



Lis 



TO COLONEL W. S. SMITH. 

Quincy, 3 May, 1801. 

DEAR SIR, 

I HAVE to acknowledge the receipt of the raspberry bushes, 
and the pot of strawberry vines, for which accept my thanks. 
I have had them placed in a good part of the garden, and 
shall pay particular attention to them. I hope I shall be 
able to treat you with a plate of them, when I shall have 
the pleasure of seeing you at Quincy. 

Whatever strange events occur in the political world, I 
think your path plain ; the strict and impartial discharge of 
the duties of your office, with a prudent silence, without be- 
coming the demagogue of any party. 

Be so good as to send the enclosed by a safe hand. My 
love to Mrs. Smith and the children. Tell her I have com- 

25 



386 LETTERS. 

menced my operations of dairy-woman ; and she might see 
me, at five o'clock in the morning, skimming my milk. 
Adieu, my dear Sir. Your affectionate ■ 

A. Adams. \ 



r 

\ TO THOMAS B. ADAMS. 

Quincy, 12 July, 1801. 

MY DEAR SON, 

I AM much delighted to learn that you intend making a visit 
to the old mansion. I wish you could have accomplished 
it so as to have been here by this time, which would have 
given you an opportunity of being at Commencement, meet- 
ing many of your old acquaintance, and visiting the seat of 
science, where you received your first rudiments. I shall 
look daily for you. You will find your father in his fields, 
.attending to his hay-makers, and your mother busily occu- 
\pied in the domestic concerns of her family. I regret that 
a fortnight of sharp drought has shorn many of the beauties 
we had in rich luxuriance. The verdure of the grass has 
become a brown, the flowers hang their heads, droop, and 
fade, whilst the vegetable world languishes ; yet still we 
have a pure air. The crops of hay have been abundant ; 
upon this spot, where eight years ago we cut scarcely six 
tons, we now have thirty. " We are here, among the vast 
and noble scenes of nature, where we walk in the light and 
open ways of the divine bounty, and where our senses are 
feasted with the clear and genuine taste of their objects." 

" Who, that has reason and his smell, 
Would not among- roses and jasmine dwell. 
Rather than aU his spirits choke 
With exhalations of dirt and smoke. 
And all the uncleanness which does drowi 
In pestilential clouds a populous town.''^ 

At this season, it is best to take the packet by way of 
Providence. 



LETTERS. . 387 

I have received Mr. J 's play. It is better executed 

than I believed him capable of performing. As a youthful 

specimen of genius, it has merit. I presume S has 

sent you Mr. Paine's Oration upon July the 4th. I think 
you will be pleased with it. 

I am, my dear Thomas, 

Affectionately your mother, 

A. A. 



TO MRS. WARREN. 

Quincy, 16 January, 1803. 

MY DEAR MADAM, 

It was with much pleasure I recognized the handwriting of 
an old friend, though only in the signature of her name. It 
recalled to mind those days of pleasurable intercourse when 
thought met thought, and a happy union of sentiment en- 
deared our friendship, which neither time nor distance has 
effaced from my bosom. I have sympathized with you in 
sickness and in sorrow much oftener than my pen has de- 
tailed it to you. I, too, have tasted of the bitter cup of 
affliction ; — and one is not, cut off in the meridian of life. 

I was happy that my son had an opportunity of paying 
his respects to the ancient friends of his parents. We 
should be equally glad to see your sons whenever they pass 
this way. His visit to Plymouth was necessarily short, or 
he would have spent more time with you. You observe 
that you have not seen any effort of my pen for a long time. 
Indeed, my dear Madam, I have avoided writing, for these 
two years past, a single letter, except to my sister and child- 
ren. The sacred deposit of private confidence has been 
betrayed, and the bonds of friendly intercourse snapped 
asunder to serve the most malicious purposes. Even a joc- 
ular expression has been made to wear the garb of sober 
reality. The most innocent expressions have been twisted, 
mangled, and tortured into meanings wholly foreign to the 



388 LETTERS. 

sentiments of the writer. I have been ready to exclaim, 
with the poet, 

" "What sin unknown dip'd you in ink." 

There now lies before me an -^gis of the present year, 
in which is dragged to light the intercepted letter ^ said to 
have been written to your worthy husband, in the year 
1775, and published in an English magazine. The design 
of the publisher appears from the introduction of the letter 
to make it believed that the person alluded to as " a piddling 
genius " was General Washington, and that the supposed 
writer was engaged in a plot to get him removed from the 
command of the army ; that he possessed a sanguinary, re- 
vengeful temper, and was desirous of punishment without 
mercy ; without adverting to the period when the letter was 
written, and the state of the country at that time. Before the 
Declaration of Independence had set it free from the shackles 
and chains which were prepared for it, and when we were 
hazarding an attempt to form a government for ourselves, 
it was natural for the letter- writer to inquire, Will your 
judges be bold ? Will they feel firm ? Will they dare to 
execute the laws under their present circumstances, with 
their capital in the possession of a powerful enemy, and 
many of their near and dear friends shut up within it, pris- 
oners to them ? The old actors are gone off the stage. 
Few remain who remember the perils and dangers to which 
we were then exposed, and fewer still who are willing to do 
justice to those who hazarded their lives and fortunes to 
secure to them the blessings which they now possess, and 
upon which they riot and scoff. Little regard is paid to 

t prohibition, " Thou shalt not bear false witness," or to 
kt system of benevolence which teaches us to " love one 
another " ; and which I trust we, my dear Madam, shall 
never lose sight of, however reviled and despiteful ly used. 

Your friends, though not exempt from the infirmities of 
age, are in the enjoyment of many blessings, amongst 
which is a comfortable portion of age and rural felicity. 

1 The history of tliis lejtter has been given in the appendix to the Letters 
of John Adams. 



LETTERS. 389 

We enjoy the present with gratitude, and look forward to 
brighter prospects and more durable happiness in a future 
state of existence, where we hope to meet and rejoice with 
those whom we have loved and revered upon earth. 

As to the little pecuniary matter between us, which, but 
for your reminding me of it, would never have been recol- 
lected by me, I know not where the papers are. I have 
not seen them nor thought of them for many years. I have 
not any thing upon book, and the amount can be but a 
trifle, and I beg you not to give yourself any further con- 
cern about it ; as I have not any demand upon you, but for 
a continuance of that friendship and regard commenced in 
early life, and never designedly forfeited 

By your friend, 

Abigail Adams. 



TO THOMAS JEFFERSON. 

Quincy, 20 May, 1804. 



SIB, 



Had you been no other than the private inhabitant of Mon- 
ticello, I should, ere this time, have addressed you with that 
sympathy which a recent event has awakened in my bosom ; 
but reasons of various kinds withheld my pen, until the 
powerful feelings of my heart burst through the restraint, 
and called upon me to shed the tear of sorrow over the de- 
parted remains of your beloved and deserving daughter ; — 
an event which I most sincerely mourn. 

The attachment which I formed for her, when you coni^ 
mitted her to my care upon her arrival in a foreign lanu^ 
under circumstances peculiarly interesting, has remained 
with me to this hour ; and the account of her death, which 
I read in a late paper, recalled to my recollection the ten- 
der scene of her separation from me, when, with the strong- 
est sensibility, she clung around my neck and wet my bosom 
with her tears, saying, " Oh ! now I have learned to love 
you, why will they take me from you ? " 



390 LETTERS. 

It has been some time since I conceived that any event 
in this life could call forth feelings of mutual sympathy. 
But I know how closely entwined around a parent's heart 
are those cords which bind the parental to the filial bosom ; 
and when snapped asunder, how agonizing the pangs ! I 
have tasted of the bitter cup, and bow with reverence and 
submission before the great Dispenser of it, without whose 
permission and overruling providence not a sparrow falls to 
the ground. That you may derive comfort and consolation 
in this day of your sorrow and affliction from that only 
source calculated to heal the wounded heart, a firm belief 
in the being, perfections and attributes of God, is the sin- 
cere and ardent wish of her, who once took pleasure in sub- 
scribing herself your friend, 

Abigail Adams/ 



TO THOMAS JEFFERSON. 

Quincy, 1 July, 1804. 



J 



SIR, 

Your letter of June 13th, came duly to hand. If it had 
contained no other sentiments and opinions than those which 
my letter of condolence could have excited, and which are 
expressed in the first page of your reply, our correspond- 
ence would have terminated here. But you have been 
pleased to enter upon some subjects which call for a reply ; 
and as you observe that you have wished for an opportunity 
to express your sentiments, I have given them every weight 
Jjspy claim. 

r ■' One act of Mr, Adams's life, and one only (you repeat) 
ever gave me a moment's personal displeasure. I did con- 
sider his last appointments to office as personally unkind ; 
they were, from my most ardent political enemies." 

^ The answer to this letter will be found in the correspondence of Mr- 
Jefferson, published by his grandson, Thomas Jeflerson Randolph, Vol. 4, 
p. 17. 



LETTERS. 391 

As this act, I am certain, was not intended to give any 
personal pain or offence, I think it a duty to explain it, so far 
as I then knew his views and designs. The Constitution em- 
powers the President to fill up offices as they become vacant. 
It was in the exercise of this power, that appointments were 
made, and characters selected, whom Mr. Adams consid- 
ered as men faithful to the constitution, and where he per- 
sonally knew them, such as were capable of fulfilling their 
duty to their country. This was done equally by General 
Washington in the last days of his administration, so that 
not an office remained vacant for his successor to fill upon 
his coming into office. No offence was given by it and no 
personal unkindness thought of. 

But the different political opinions, which have so unhap- 
pily divided our country, must have given rise to the idea 
that personal unkindness was intended. You will please to 
recollect. Sir, that at the time these appointments were 
made, there was not any certainty that the Presidency would 
devolve upon you, which is another circumstance to prove 
that no personal unkindness was intended. No person, I 
am sure, was ever selected from such a motive, and so far 
was Mr. Adams from harboring such a sentiment, that he 
had not any idea of the intolerance of party spirit at that 
time. I know it was his opinion, that if the Presidency de- 
volved upon you, except in the appointment of Secretaries, 
no material change would be made. I perfectly agree with 
you in opinion that those should be men in whom the Presi- 
dent can repose confidence, possessing opinions and senti- 
ments corresponding with his own ; or if differing with him, 
that they ought rather to resign their offices than to cabal 
against measures which he may consider essential to the 
honor, safety and peace of the country. Neither ought 
they to unite with any bold and daringly ambitious character 
to overrule the Cabinet or to betray the secrets of it to 
friends or enemies. The two gentlemen who held the offices 
of secretaries, when you became President, were not of this 
character. They were persons appointed by your predeces- 
sor nearly two years previous to his retirement. They had * 



392 LETTERS. 

cordially cooperated with him, and were gentlemen who 
enjoyed the public confidence. Possessing, however, differ- 
ent political sentiments from those which you were known 
to have embraced, it was expected that they would, as they 
did, resign. 

I have never felt any enmity towards you. Sir, for being 
elected President of the United States. But the instruments 
made use of and the means which were practised to effect 
a change have my utter abhorrence and detestation, for 
they were the blackest calumny and the foulest falsehoods. 
I had witnessed enough of the anxiety and solicitude, the 
envy, jealousy and reproach attendant upon the office, as 
well as the high responsibility of the station, to be perfectly 
willing to see a transfer of it ; and I can truly say, that at 
the time of election, I considered your pretensions much 
superior to his who shared an equal vote with you. Your 
experience, I dare venture to affirm, has convinced you, 
that it is not a station to be envied. If you feel yourself a 
freeman, and can conduct, in all cases, according to your 
own sentiments, opinions and judgment, you can do more 
than either of your predecessors could, and are awfully re- 
sponsible to God and your country for the measures of your 
administi'ation. I must rely upon the friendship you still 
profess to entertain for me, (and I am conscious I have done 
nothing to forfeit it) to excuse the freedom of this discus- 
sion, to which you have led with an unreserve, which has 
taken off the shackles I should, otherwise, have found my- 

/ self embarrassed with. And now. Sir, I will freely disclose 
to you what has severed the bonds of former friendship, 
and placed you in a light very different from what some 
viewed you in. 

One of the first acts of your administration was to liberate 
a wretch, who was suffering the just punishment of his 
crimes for publishing the basest libel, the lowest and vilest 
slander which malice could invent or calumny exhibit, 

/ against the character and reputation of your predecessor ; 

of him, for whom you professed a friendship and esteem, 

' and whom you certainly knew incapable of such complicated 



LETTERS. 393 

baseness. The remission of Callender's fine was a public • 
approbation of his conduct. If abandoned characters do 
not excite abhorrence, is not the last restraint of vice, a 
sense of shame, rendered abortive ? If the Chief Magis- J 
trate of a nation whose elevated station places him in a con- 
spicuous light and renders his every action a concern of 
general importance, permits his public conduct to be influ- 
enced by private resentment, and so far forgets what is due 
to his character as to give countenance to a base calumnia- 
tor, is he not answerable for the influence which his example 
has upon the manneis and morals of the community .'' 

Until I read Callender's seventh letter containing your 
compliment to him as a writer and your reward of fifty dol- 
lars, I could not be made to believe that such measures 
could have been resorted to, to stab the fair fame and up- 
right intentions of one who, to use your own language, 
" was acting from an honest conviction in his own mind that 
he was right." This Sir, I considered as a personal injury; 
this was the sword that cut asunder the Gordian knot, which 
could not be untied by all the eflbrts of party spirit, by 
rivalry, by jealousy, or any other malignant fiend. 

The serpent you cherished and warmed bit the hand that 
nourished him and gave you sufllcient specimens of his 
talents, his gratitude, his justice and his truth. When such 
vipers are let loose upon society, all distinction between 
virtue and vice is levelled ; all respect for character is lost 
in the deluge of calumny ; that respect, which is a neces- 
sary bond in the social union, which gives efficacy to laws, 
and teaches the subject to obey the magistrate, and the 
child to submit to the parent. 

There is one other act of your administration which I 
considered as personally unkind, and which your own mind 
will easily suggest to you ; but as it neither affected charac- 
ter nor reputation, I forbear to state it. 

This letter is written in confidence. Faithful are the 
wounds of a friend. Often have I wished to have seen a 
different course pursued by you. I bear no malice. I 
cherish no enmity. I would not retaliate if it was in my 



394 LETTERS^ 



power ; nay more, in the true spirit of Christian charity, I 
would forgive as I hope to be forgiven. With that disposi- 
tion of mind and heart, I subscribe the name of 

Abiqail Adams. 1 



TO THOMAS JEFFEESON. 

Quincy, 18 August, 1804. 



,/■ 



SIK, 

Your letter of July 22 was by some mistake in the post- 
office at Boston sent back as far as New York, so that it 
did not reach me until the eleventh of this month. Candor 
requires of me a reply. Your statement respecting Callen- 
der, and your motives for liberating him, wear a different 
aspect as explained by you, from the impression which the 
act had made, not only upon my mind, but upon the minds 
of all those whom I have ever heard speak upon the sub- 
ject. With regard to the law under which he was punished, 
different persons entertain different opinions respecting it. 
It lies not with me to determine its validity or constitution- 
ality. That devolved upon the Supreme Judges of the na- 
tion. I have ever understood that the power which makes 
a law is only competent to the repeal of it. If a Chief 
Magistrate can by his will annul it, where is the difference 
between a republican and a despotic government ? 

That some restraint should be laid upon the assassin who 
stabs reputation, all civilized nations have assented to. In 
no country have calumny, falsehood and reviling stalked 
abroad more licentiously than in this. . No political charac- 
ter has been secure from its attacks ; no reputation so fair 
as not to be wounded by it, until truth and falsehood lie in 
one undistinguished heap. If there is no check to be re- 
sorted to in the laws of the land, and no reparation to be 

1 The answer to tliis letter will be found in the correspondence of Mr. 
Jefferson, Vol. 4, p. 22. 



LETTERS. 395 

made to the injured, will not man become the Judge and 
avenger of his own wrongs, and, as in a late instance, the 
sword and pistol decide the contest ? All Christian and 
social virtues will be banished the land. All that makes 
life desirable and softens the ferocious passions of man will 
assume a savage deportment, and like Cain of old, every 
man's hand will be against his neighbour. Party spirit is 
blind, malevolent, uncandid, ungenerous, unjust and unfor- 
giving. It is equally so under federal as under democratic 
banners, and it would be difficult to decide which is the 
least guilty. Upon both sides are characters who possess 
honest views and act from honorable motives ; who disdain 
to be led blindfold, and who, though entertaining different 
sentiments, have for their object the public welfare and hap- 
piness. These are the characters who abhor calumny and 
evil speaking, and who will never descend to newspaper re- 
viling. You have done Mr. Adams justice in believing him 
incapable of such conduct. He has never written a line in 
any newspaper to which his signature has not been affixed 
since he was first elected President of the United States. 
The writers in the public papers and their employers are 
altogether unknown to him. 

I have seen and known that much of the conduct of a 
public ruler is liable to be misunderstood and misrepresented. 
Party hatred, by its deadly poison, blinds the eyes and en- 
venoms the heart. It is fatal to the integrity of the moral / 
character — it sees not that wisdom dwells with moderation, 
and that firmness of conduct is seldom united with outrage- 
ous violence of sentiment. Thus blame is too often libe- 
rally bestowed upon actions, which, if fully understood and 
candidly judged, would merit praise. And it is only by the 
general issue of measures, producing baneful or beneficial 
effects, that they ought to be tested. You exculpate your- 
self from any intentional act of unkindness towards any 
one. I will, however, freely state that which I considered 
as such. Soon after my eldest son's return from Europe, 
he was appointed by the District Judge to an office in which 
no political concerns entered. Personally known to you, 



396 ^LETTERS. 

and possessing all the qualifications, you yourself being 
judge, which you had designated for office, as soon as Con- 
gress gave the appointments to the President, you removed 
him. This looked so particularly pointed, that some of 
your best friends in Boston at that time expressed their re- 
J gret that you had done so. I must do him the justice to 
" say that I never heard an expression from him of censure 
or disrespect towards you in consequence of it With 
pleasure I say, that he is not a blind follower of any party. 
I have written to you with a freedom which only former 
friendship would warrant ; and to which I would gladly re- 
turn, could all causes but mere difference of opinion be 
removed. I wish to lead a tranquil and retired life under 
\J the administration of the government, disposed to heal the 
wounds of contention, to cool the raging fury of party ani- 
mosity, to soften the rugged spirit of resentmefit, and desir- 
ous of seeing my children and grandchildren heirs to that 
freedom and independence which you and your predecessor 
united your efforts to obtain. With these sentiments, I re- 
ciprocate my sincere wishes for your health and happiness.* 

Abigail Adams. 



TO THOMAS JEFFERSON. 

\j Quincy, 25 October, 1804. 



SIE, 



i 



Sickness for three weeks past has prevented my acknow- 
ledging the receipt of your letter of Sept. 1 1th. When I 
first addressed you, I little thought of entering into a corre- 
spondence with you upon subjects of a political nature. I 
will not regret it, as it has led to some elucidations, and 
brought on some explanations, which place in a more favor- 
able light occurrences which had wounded me. 

1 For the reply to tliis letter see Mr. Jefferson's correspondence, Vol. IV. 
p. 26. 



LETTERS. 397 

Having once entertained for you a respect and esteem', 
founded upon the character of an affectionate parent, a kind 
master, a candid and benevolent friend, I could not suffer 
different political opinions to obliterate them from my mind ; 
I felt the truth of the observation, that the heart is long, y 
very long in receiving the conviction that is forced upon it ' 
by reason. It was not until circumstances concurred to 
place you in the light of a rewarder and encourager of a 
libeller, whom you could not but detest and despise, that I 
withdrew the esteem I had long entertained for you. Nor 
can you wonder, Sir, that I should consider as a personal 
unkindness, the instances I have mentioned. I am pleased 
to find that which respected my son altogether unfounded. 
He was, as you conjecture, appointed a Commissioner of 
Bankruptcy, together with Judge Dawes, and continued to 
serve in it with perfect satisfaction to all parties, (at least I 
never heard the contrary) until superseded by the appoint- 
ment of others. The idea suggested that no one was in 
office, and consequently no removal could take place, I can- 
not consider in any other light than what the gentlemen of 
the law would term a quibble, — as such I pass it. Judge 
Dawes was continued or re-appointed, which placed Mr. 
Adams in a more conspicuous light as the object of per- 
sonal resentment. Nor could I, upon this occasion, refrain 
calling to mind the last visit you made me at Washington, 
when in the course of conversation you assured me, that if 
it should lay in your power at any time to serve me or my 
family, nothing would give you more pleasure. With re- 
spect to the office, it was a small object, but the disposition 
of the remover was considered by me as the barbed arrow. 
This, however, by your declaration, is withdrawn from my 
mind. With the public it will remain. And here. Sir, 
may I be allowed to pause, and ask whether, in your ardent 
desire to rectify the mistakes and abuses, as you may term / 
them, of the former administrations, you may not be led 
into measures still more fatal to the Constitution, and more | 
derogatory to your honor and independence of character ? ' 
I know, from the observations which I have made, that 



398 •letters. 

I 

there is not a more difficult part devolves upon a Chief 
Magistrate, nor one which subjects him to more reproach 
and censure, than the appointment to office. And all the 
patronage which this enviable power gives him is but a 
poor compensation for the responsibility to which it subjects 
him. It would be well, however, to weigh and consider 
characters, as it respects their moral worth and integrity. 
He who is not true to himself, nor just to others, seeks an 
office for the benefit of himself, unmindful of that of his 
country. 

I cannot accord with you in opinion that the Constitution 
ever meant to withhold from the national government the 
power of self-defence ; or that it could be considered an 
infringement of the liberty of the press, to punish the licen- J 
tiousness of it. 

Time must determine, and posterity will judge, with more 
candor and impartiality, I hope, than the conflicting parties 
of our day, what measures have best promoted the happi- 
ness of the people ; what raised them from a state of de- 
pression and degradation to wealth, honor, and reputation ; 
what has made them affluent at home and respected abroad ; 
and to whomsoever the tribute is due, to them may it be 
given. 

I will not any further intrude upon your time ; but close 
this correspondence by my wishes that you may be directed 
to that path which may terminate in the prosperity and hap- 
piness of the people over whom you are placed, by admin- 
istering the government with justice and impartiality. And 
be assured. Sir, no one will more rejoice in your success 
than 

Abigail Adams. 

memorandum, 

In the handwriting of Mr. Adams, subjoined to the copy 
of this letter : 

^ Quincy, 19 November, 1804. 

V The whole of this correspondence was begun and con- 



LETTERS. 399 

ducted without my knowledge or suspicion. Last evening 
and this morning, at the desire of Mrs. Adams, I read the 
whole. I have no remarks to make upon it, at this time 
and in this place. 

J. Adams. 



TO MRS. PACKARD. 1 

Qtiincy, 11 March, 1805. 

With the only beloved daughter of my late venerable and 
respected friend, I pour the tear of sympathy, and with a full 
heart participate in the sorrowful event, which has deprived 
her of one of the most tender and affectionate of parents ; one 
of the best of mothers ; one of the kindest friends ; one of the 
pleasantest companions ; and one of the most exemplary of 
women. 

To me she was a " Friend of more than fifty years ripen- 
ing," my earliest, my constant, and my oldest friend. Dear 
departed spirit, wilt thou still be my friend in those regions 
of immortal bliss, to which I trust thou art translated and 
whither I hope ere long to follow thee. With Dr. Johnson, 
I can say " hope dictates what revelation does not confute ; 
that the union of souls may still remain, and we who are 
struggling with sin, sorrow, and infirmities, may have our 
part in the attention and kindness of those who have finished 
their course and are now receiving their reward." ' 

" Hope wipes the tear from sorrow's eye, 
And faith points upward to the sky." 

Scarcely had the grave closed over the remains of my 
esteemed friend Madam Sargent, relict of the late Judge, ere 
it was again opened to receive those of one still dearer to me. 
It is more than fifty years since my acquaintance commenced 

1 Through the Idndness of Mr. Benjamin Guild, of Boston, the Editor ob- 
tained this letter upon the death of Mrs. Quincy, from her daughter, the lad^ 
to whom it was addressed. * 



400 ' ITETTERS. 

with her, who in that period became your mother. I was 
then a child, and carried by my grandmother, to visit with her, 
your grandmother, whom she taught me from my earliest 
infancy to venerate, as well as to love and respect her 
daughter. And this, before any connexion in the family 
united us in closer bonds. The early impressions I received, 
were indelibly stamped by time, and impressed by my own 
judgment, as I advanced in life, and became more capable 
of appreciating the many virtues of your late excellent 
parent, in the various relations she sustained, of daughter, 
wife, and mother, in each of which she had few equals, and 
1 know not her superior. You have reason for gratitude and 
thankfulness, that she was spared to you, to a very advanced 
age, and with as few of its infirmities as is the lot of human- 
ity ; always possessing a cheerfulness and vivacity, which 
whilst it enlivened, delighted, for it was chastened with dig- 
nity and decorum. 

" Peace, and esteem, is all that age can hope ;" these she 
fenjoyed through life, and having fixed her hopes and ex- 
pectations upon a solid foundation, she is gone to reap the 
fruit of a well-spent life. 

" Heaven gives us friends to bless the present scene. 
Resumes tiiem, to prepare us for the next." 

Let US, my afflicted friend, improve this dispensation, to 
that useful purpose, and whilst I reflect upon the many en- 
dearing virtues and bright qualities, which adorned the life 
and conversation of your dear departed parent, strive to 
emulate her example, and transplant them into our own 
lives. Thus shall we honor her memory, and transmit it 
with lustre to posterity. 

This is the fervent wish, and ardent desire, of your sym- 
pathizing friend, 

Abigail Adaj 



t 



LETTERS. 401 



TO MRS. SIIAW 






i 



Quincy, 5 June, 1809. 

I WAS unable to reply to my dear sister's letter of May 19th 
when I received it, being visited by St. Anthony, who 
scourged me most cruelly. I am sure I wished well to the 
Spanish patriots, in their late struggle for liberty, and I bore 
no ill-will to those whose tutelar saint, thus unprovoked, beset 
me. I wish he had been preaching to the fishes, who, ac- 
cording to tradition, have been his hearers ; for so ill did he 
use me, that I came near losing my senses. I think he must 
be a very bigoted saint, a favorer of the Inquisition, and a 
tyrant. If such are the penances of saints, I hope to hold no 
further intercourse with them. For four days and nights my 
face was so swelled and inflamed, that I was almost blind. * 
It seemed as though my blood boiled. Until the third day, 
when I sent for the doctor, I knew not what the matter was. 
It confined me for ten days. My face is yet red ; but I rode 
out to-day, and feel much better. I think a little journey 
would be of service to me ; but I find, as years and infirmi- 
ties increase, my courage and enterprise diminish. Ossian ] 
says, " Age is dark and unlovely." When I look in my ] 
glass, I do not much wonder at the story related of a very I 
celebrated painter, Zeuxis, who, it is said, died of laughing ' 
at a comical picture he had made of an old woman. If our 
glass flatters us in youth, it tells us truths in age. The cold 
hand of death has frozen up some of the streams of our ,' 
early friendships ; the congelation is gaining upon our vital ,' 
powers and marking us for the tomb. " May we so number 
our days as to apply our hearts unto wisdom." • 

" The man is yet unborn, who duly weighs an hour." 

When my family was young around me, I used to find 
more leisure, and think I could leave it with less anxiety than 
I can now. There is not any occasion for detailing the whys 

26 



\ 



;/ 



402 lItteks. 

and the wherefores. It is said, if riches increase, those in- 
crease that eat them ; but what shall we say, when the eat- 
ers increase without the wealth ? You know, my dear sister, 
if there be bread enough, and to spare, unless a prudent at- 
tention manage that sufficiency, the fruits of diligence will 
be scattered by the hand of dissipation. / No man ever pros- 
pered in .the world without the consent and cooperation of 
his wife. 1 It behoves us, who are parents or grandparents, to 
give our aaughters and granddaughters, when their education 
devolves upon us, such an education as shall qualify them 
for the useful and domestic duties of life, that they should 
^learn the proper use and improvement of time, since " time 
jWas given for use, not waste." The finer accomplishments, 
such as music, dancing, and painting, serve to set off and 
Embellish the picture ; but the groundwork must be formed 
of more durable colors. 
I I consider it as an indispensable requisite, that every Amer- 
ican wife should herself know how to order and regulate her 
family ; how to govern her domestics, and train up her 
children. For this purpose, the all-wise Creator made 
woman an help-meet for man, and she who fails in these du- 
ties does not answer the end of her creation. 

'" Life's cares are comforts ; such by Heaven designed ; 
I They that have none must make them, or be wretched, 
I Cares are employments, and, without employ, 
i The soul is on a rack, the rack of rest." 

I have frequently said to my friends, when they have thought 
me overburdened with care, I would rather have too much 
than too little. Life stagnates without action. I could never 
oear merely to vegetate ; v_ 

" Waters stagnate when they cease to flow." 

Has your son sent you or his sister the " Letters from the 
Mountains .?" I think them the finest selection of letters 
which I have ever read. You may with safety recommend 
them to all your young female friends. I cannot find in them 
any principle, either of morals, manners, or religion, to which 

r 



LETTERS. 403 

I cannot most heartily subscribe. Read them, and give me 
your opinion of them. Adieu. 

Your sister, 

A. A. 



TO CAROLINE A. SMITH. 

Quincy, 26 February, 1811. 

Your Letter, my dear Caroline, gave me pleasure. As all 
yours are calculated to enliven the spirits, I take them as a 
cordial, which during the residence of the bald-pated winter 
and a close confinement to my chamber for several weeks, I 
have been much in want of. And now what return can I 
make you ? What can you expect from age, debility and 
weakness ? "~ ~ 

Why, you shall have the return of a grateful heart, which 
amidst infirmities is not insensible to the many blessings 
which encompass it. Food, raiment and fuel, dear and kind 
friends and relatives, mental food and entertainment sufficient 
to satisfy the most craving appetite, and the hopes and pros- 
pect of another and better country, even an heavenly. 

" Eternal power ! from whom these blessings flow, 
Teach me still more to wonder — more to know, 
Here round my home still lift my soul to thee, 

And let me ever midst thy bounties raise X 
An humble note of thanlifulness and praise." 

Although my memory is not so tenacious as in youth, nor 
my eye-sight so clear, my hearing is unimpaired, my heart 
warm and my affections are as fervent to those in whom 
" my days renew " as formerly to those from " whom my 
days I drew." I have some troubles in the loss of friends 
by death, and no small solicitude for the motherless offspring, 
but my trust and confidence are in that being who " hears 
the young ravens when they cry." I do not know my dear 
Caroline, that I ever gave you encouragement to expect me 



404 LftxTERS. 

at the valley, although I should rejoice to be able to visit 
you — but I now look forward with the hope of seeing you 
here as an attendant upon your mother as soon as the spring 
opens and the roads will permit. 

We have snow by the cargo this winter. Not a bird flits 
but a hungry crow now and then", in quest of prey. The 
fruit trees exhibit a mournful picture, broken down by the 
weight of the snow ; whilst the running of sleighs and the 
jingle of bells assure us that all nature does not slumber. 

As if you love me, proverbially, you must love my dog, 
you will be glad to learn that Juno yet lives, although like 
her mistress she is gray with age. She appears to enjoy | 
life and to be grateful for the attention paid her. She wags 
her tail and announces a visiter whenever one appears. 

Adieu, my dear child — remember me with affection to 
your brother and with kind affection to your honored father 
and also to your uncle whose benevolent qualities I respect 
and whose cheerful spirits have made " the wilderness to 
smile and blossom as the rose." 

Most affectionately, 

Your Grandmother, 

Abigail Adams. 



TO MRS. GUSHING.' 

t 

Quincy, 5 March, 1811. 



MY DEAR FKIEND, 



I BELIEVE I may say with truth, that I have been your daily 
visiter through the dreary season of winter, and although 

1 This lady was the widow of WiUiam Gushing, for a long time an assist- 
ant Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Upon his decease, 
John Quincy Adams, although at the time in Russia, was appointed by Presi- 
dent Madison to fill the station. The desire of the writer that he should ac- 
cept the place is plainly marked in this letter, a desire which was strongly 
shared by her husband and iiis father. But the repugnance entertained by 
Mr. J. Q,. Adams, to a judicial office was too decided to be overcome even 
by the joint urgency of the persons whom he most respected in the world. 
Of the causes of this repugnance, it is not possible to treat in this place. It 
13 enough to say here that they have been very little understood. 



LETTERS. 405 

not visible to you I have sometimes seated myself by your 
fireside and held sweet converse with you, and not unfre- 
quently regretted that it was not my good fortune to have 
been situated near your dwelling — then would your cheer- 
ful countenance have enlivened the confinement I have 
experienced since I saw you. That week I was taken sick 
and am only now leaving my chamber. The weather has 
been so unpleasant, and the roads so obstructed by snow, 
that I have not been able to get abroad. 

You will see by the public papers that the President has 
nominated and the Senate unanimously appointed my son 
as successor to your late ever dear friend in his office as 
judge. Although I knew by information received early in 
the session from Washington, that it was his wish to do so, I 
considered my son's absence as an insurmountable objection. 
I also knew what importunate interest would be made for 
many candidates. The appointment was altogether unex- 
pected both to his father and to me. The unanimity 
with which it was assented to, and the general satisfaction 
which it appears to give to all parties, will, I hope and trust, 
induce him to accept the appointment which so honorably 
calls him back to his native country, and which I hope will 
shield him from that spirit of party animosity which has so 
unjustly assailed him. It will place him out of the reach of 
competition for office which occasions so much envy and 
jealousy amongst all parties. I would rather have him hold 
the office of judge than that of any foreign embassy or even 
chief magistrate of the United States. 

I think, my dear friend, you will be gratified to think that 
the seat your friend so honorably held and so faithfully dis- 
charged will not be disgraced by his successor. Both his 
father and I have written to him to urge his acceptance of 
an office which he has heretofore, when mentioned to him, 
expressed a reluctance to filling, if ever he should be ap- 
pointed to it. He will now have many motives to reconsider 
what then appeared to him a place to which he did not con- 
sider himself adequate. 

I know the interest you take in whatever concerns your 



406 LETTERS. , 

friends will plead my excuse for making myself and family 
the subject of this letter. Pray let me hear how you 
are. My regards to your sisters, and believe me at all 
times 

Your truly, affectionate 

Abigail Adams. 



TO WILLIAM CRANCH. 

Quincy, 17 October, 1811. 

MY DEAR NEPHEW, 

Your dear father has joined the spirits of the blessed made 
perfect. On Saturday last he was taken sick, appeared 
as he frequently has upon former days, was wandering 
in his mind, — but a general prostration of strength took 
place. He was sensible only for a few moments at a time ; 
exhausted nature sunk to rest, without pain or struggle, and 
Heaven has been pleased to save him the anguish of follow- 
ing your dear mother to the tomb. She supports herself 
with the resignation of a true christian ; saying " the Lord's 
will be done, we are parted only for a few hours or days. 
I shall soon meet him in the realms of bliss." 

She can have but a few days longer upon earth. Ema- 
ciation, so that her bones are almost bare, together with 
swelling of her feet, hands, and face, show us daily that her 
passage to the grave is speedily hastening ; and, my dear 
nephew, we have every reason to believe that your dear 
and blessed parents are gone and going to their God, and 
our God, whom they have faithfully served upon earth — 
and if we trust in him, as I hope we do, we shall be sup- 
ported through life and through death. 
I am, my dear nephew. 

Your sympathizing and afflicted aunt, 

Abigail Adams. 



i 



LETTERS. 407 



TO WILLIAM CRANCH.* 

Quincy, 25 October, 1811. 

MY DEAR NEPHEW, 

The solemn and impressive scenes through which I have 
passed the last week, were too affecting to me to commit to 
paper. I thank God for that support and consolation which 
now enables me to address the only son of my dear departed 
brother and sister, endeared to me by every tie of affection 
and consanguinity, whose lives were a worthy example to 
all their posterity, and whose deaths were a comment upon 
their lives. As they had lived together in bonds of closest 
conjugal harmony and affection, near fifty years, so an 
all wise and merciful providence has removed them together 
to the realms of bliss ; and this, my dear nephew, is a con- 
solation to me, that neither is left to mourn the death of the 
other. That they were spared to us so long is another 
source' of thankfulness. That they endured no more pain 
or agony in their departing moments, is among the bles- 
sings we have to be thankful for. That they have left such 
bright, and, as far as the imperfections of human nature 
would admit, spotless characters behind them, is the richest 
legacy they could transmit to their posterity. 
• Your father was seized with a lethargy which deprived 
him in a great measure of his speech, and prevented us 
from receiving from his dying lips the testimony which he 
would undoubtedly have given, to the truth and excellence 
of that religion of which he had ever been an ornament. 
Heaven was satisfied, and his work was finished. Your 
dear mother, through her whole sickness, was full of faith, 
hope, and charity. Although she struggled for life, for the 
sake of your father, and the dear orphans, I may say, of 
your sister, yet, when she was informed of his death, it did 
not affect her as it would have done in health. 

' By the kindness of Judge Cranch, the Editor has been enabled to insert 
this and the preceding letter into the present collection. 



408 LETTTERS. 

I passed the three last days of her life chiefly with her, 
in two of which she appeared wandering ; in one of them 
she did not mention your father, in the other she talked 
much of him, and in a kind of ecstasy said, " He has only 
stepped behind the scene ; I shall know where to find him ; " 
so upon another occasion she said, "his whole life was 
prayer ; " that " now all her tie to life was broken ; she was 
both ready and willing to die." Once, after a silence of 
some time, she broke out into an apostrophe — " O my son, 
my son" — and said no more. I presumed she had been 
thinking of the grief which the death of your father would 
occasion to you. 

The day she departed, your uncle and I were in her 
chamber. She thanked us most tenderly for all our kind- 
ness to her, and her family, as she expressed herself; her 
mind appeared less wandering than through her whole sick- 
ness. She was perfectly collected, and called to her bed- 
side my granddaughter, Susan B. Adams, and taking her 
by the hand, conversed with her upon the importance of 
early piety, upon the duty which she owed to God, to her 
parent, and her grandparents, and upon the duty and effi- 
cacy of prayer. She dwelt upon that with great eloquence 
and pathos, when offered in sincerity ; said she had never 
offered to Heaven a petition which she did not see answered 
in receiving the blessing, or, if denied, she could trace the 
kindness of the hand in withholding it ; recommended to < 
her the repeated perusal of a sermon, in Dr. Paley's works, 
upon early piety, from this text, " Be sober minded ; " 
having finished, (and I can only give you an imperfect 
sketch,) she said, " This is all I can offer you, Susan, for 
your kindness to me ; it is my last legacy ; " and so it 
proved. During this conversation, we were all but herself 
in tears. Her lungs were sound and strong. She appeared 
to me much more comfortable, and likely to continue for 
some time, than for two days before. The family being so 
numerous, I usually returned home to dine ; I did so this 
day, never to see her living face more. In less than an 
hour, your brother, D. Greenleaf, came in and told me her 



LETTERS. 409 

spirit had fled ; Heaven kindly spared me the last sad part- 
ing pang. 

I shall not make any apology to you for my minuteness ; 
it is the sweet remembrance of the just, and will, I hope, 
solace you under your bereavement. Richard Norton has 
no doubt written to you of the respectable manner in which 
their remains were interred, accompanied by a numerous 
assembly to church, where Mr. Whitney delivered to a 
crowded audience an excellent discourse from Psalms : 
" The righteous shall be held in everlasting remembrance," 
in which, with much justice, he gave the characters of 
your respected parents. The sermon will be published. 

I hope, my dear nephew, while I live, that you will con- 
sider me as a parent, and present me as such to your dear 
partner, although I can never supply her place to you, 
whose death you mourn. 

Your uncle and the whole family unite in sympathy and 
affection. 

I am, my dear nephew. 

Your affectionate and sympathizing aunt, 

Abigail Adams. 



TO CAROLINE A. SMITH. 

Quincy, 19 November, 1812. 

MY DEAR CAROLINE, 

Your neat, pretty letter, looking small, but containing much, 
reached me this day. I have a good mind to give you the 
journal of the day. 

Six o'clock. Rose, and, in imitation of his Britannic 
Majesty, kindled my own fire. Went to the stairs, as usual, 
to summon George and Charles. Returned to my chamber, 
dressed myself No one stirred. Called a second time, 
with voice a little raised. 

Seven o'clock. Blockheads not out of bed. Girls in i 



410 LETTERS. 

motion. Mean, when I hire another man-servant, that he 
shall come for one call. 

Eight o'clock. Fires made, breakfast prepared. L 

in Boston. Mrs. A. at the tea-board. Forgot the sausages. 
Susan's recollection brought them upon the table. 

Enter Ann. " Ma'am, the man is come with coals." 

" Go, call George to assist him." [Exit Ann. 

Enter Charles. " Mr. B is come with cheese, tur- 
nips, &c. Where are they to be put ? " " I will attend to 
him myself." [Exit Charles. 

Just seated at the table again. 

Enter George with " Ma'am, here is a man with a drove 
of pigs." A consultation is held upon this important sub- 
ject, the result of which is the purchase of two spotted 
swine. 

Nine o'clock. Enter Nathaniel, from the upper house, 
with a message for sundries ; and black Thomas's daughter, 
for sundries. Attended to all these concerns. A little out 
of sorts that I could not finish my breakfast. Note ; never 
to be incommoded with trifles. 

Enter George Adams, from the post-office, — a large 
packet from Russia, and from the valley also. Avaunt, all 
cares, — I put you all aside, — and thus I find good news 
from a far country, — children, grandchildren, all well. I 
had no expectation of hearing from Russia this winter, and 
the pleasure was the greater to obtain letters of so recent a 
date, and to learn that the family were all in health. For 
this blessing give I thanks. 

At twelve o'clock, by a previous engagement, I was to 

call at Mr. G 's for Cousin B. Smith to accompany me 

to the bridge at Quincy-port, being the first day of passing 
it. The day was pleasant ; the scenery delightful. Passed 
both bridges, and entered Hingham. Returned before three 
o'clock. Dined, and, 

At five, went to Mr. T. G 's, with your grandfather ; 

the third visit he has made with us in the week ; and let me 

whisper to you he played at whist with Mr. J. G , who 

was as ready and accurate as though he had both eyes to 
see with. Returned. 



LETTERS. 411 

At nine, sat down and wrote a letter. 

At eleven, retired to bed. We do not so every week. I 
tell it you as one of the marvels of the age. By all this, 
you will learn that grandmother has got rid of her croaking, 
and that grandfather is in good health, and that both of us 
are as tranquil as that bald old fellow, called Time, will let 
us be. 

And here I was interrupted in my narrative. 

I re-assume my pen upon the 22d of November, being 
this day sixty-eight years old. How many reflections occur 
to me upon this anniversary ! 

What have I done for myself or others in this long period 
of my sojourn, that I can look back upon with pleasure, or 
reflect upon with approbation ? Many, very many follies 
and errors of judgment and conduct rise up before me, and 
ask forgiveness of that Being, who seeth into the secret 
recesses of the heart, and from whom nothing is hidden. I 
think I may with truth say, that in no period of my life have 
the vile passions had control over me. I bear no enmity 
to any human being ; but, alas ! as Mrs. Placid said to her 
friend, by which of thy good works wouldst thou be willing 
to be judged ? I do not believe, with some divines, that all 
our good works are but as filthy rags ; the example which 
our great Master has set before us, of purity, benevolence, 
obedience, submission and humility, are virtues which, if 
faithfully practised, will find their reward ; or why has he 
pronounced so many benedictions upon them in his sermon 
on the mount ? I would ask with the poet, 

" Is not \'irtue in mankind 
The nutriment tliat feeds the mind, 
Then who, with reason, can pretend 
That all effects of virtue end ? " 

I am one of those who are willing to rejoice always. My 
disposition and habits are not of the gloomy kind. I believe 
that " to enjoy is to obey." 

*' Yet not to Earth's contracted span, 
Tliy goodness let me bound ; 
Or tliink thee Lord alone of man. 
Whilst thousand worlds are round." 



412 LETTERS. 

I have many more subjects, dear Caroline, which I want 
to write to you upon. 

27 November. 

Yesterday was our Thanksgiving day. In our own way, 
and with tempers suited to the occasion, we gave thanks for 
those blessings which we felt had been granted to us in the 
year past, for the restoration and recoveiy from dangerous 
sickness of members of our own family ; and, although in one 
instance we had been called to weep, in many others we had 
cause of rejoicing. We were in health ; we had good news 
from a far country ; we had food and raiment, and we still 
enjoyed liberty, and our rulers were men of our own elec- 
tion, and removable by the people. Dear Caroline, I have 
trespassed upon you. I will close by saying, that your 
uncle and aunt, with their three children, your aunt Smith, 
George and John Adams, with our own family, made the 
joyful group. We remembered the absent, and sent our 
wishes to Russia and the valley ; but wishes were empty. — 
No, they bore upon their wings blessings, a portion of which 
were for my dear Caroline, 

From her affectionate grandmother, 

Abigail Adams. 



TO MRS. WARREN. 

Quiiicy, 30 December, 1812. 

MY DEAR MADAM, 

Although at the eleventh hour, I will not suffer the year to 
close upon me without noticing your repeated favors and 
thanking you for them. 

So long as we are inhabitants of this earth and possess any 
of our faculties, we cannot be indifferent to the state of our 
country, our posterity and our friends. Personally we have 
arrived so near the close of the drama that we can experi- 
ence but few of the evils which await the rising generation. 



LETTERS. 413 

We have passed through one revolution and have happily ar- 
rived at the goal, but the ambition, injustice and plunder of for- 
eign powers have again involved us in war, the termination 
of which is not given us to see. 

If we have not " the gorgeous palaces or the cloud-capp'd 
towers" of Moscow to be levelled with the dust, nor a million 
of victims to sacrifice upon the altar of ambition, we have 
our firesides, our comfortable habitations, our cities, our 
churches and our country to defend, our rights, privileges 
and independence to preserve. And for these are we not 
justly contending ? Thus it appears to me ; yet I hear from 
our pulpits and read from our presses that it is an unjust, a 
wicked, a ruinous and unnecessary war. If I give an opin- 
ion with respect to the conduct of our native State, I cannot 
do it with approbation. She has had much to complain of 
as it respected a refusal of naval protection, yet that cannot 
justify her in paralyzing the arm of government when raised 
for her defence and that of the nation. A house divided 
against itself — and upon that foundation do our enemies 
build their hopes of subduing us. May it prove a sandy one 
to them. 

You once asked what does Mr. Adams think of Napoleon .? 
The reply was, I think, that after having been the scourge 
of nations, he should himself be destroyed. We have seen 
him run an astonishing career. Is not his measure full ? 
Like Charles the XII. of Sweden, he may find in Alexander 
another Peter. Much, my friend, might we moralize upon 
these great events, but we know but in part and we see but 
in part. The longer I live, the more wrapt in clouds and 
darkness does the future appear to me. 

** Who sees with equal eye as God of all 
A hero perish or a sparrow fall, 
Atoms to atoms into ruin hurled 
And now a bubble burst and now a world." 

With this letter I forward to you a token of love and friend- 
ship. I hope it will not be the less valuable to you for com- 
bining with a lock of my own hair that of your ancient 



414 EETTERS. 

friend's at his request. The lock of hair with which you 
favoured me, from a head which I shall ever respect, I have 
placed in a handkerchief-pin set with pearls in the same 
manner with the ring. I shall hold it precious. Thus have 
I disposed of the precious metal sent by my son. 

If the Spring should find me in health and my friend also, 
I shall wish to renew my visit to Plymouth, that I may again 
embrace you and be invigorated from a recollection of those 
days when we held sweet converse together. 

With compliments and regards to every member of your 
family, I subscribe myself 

Your affectionate 

Abigail Adams. 



TO MRS. GUSHING. 

Quincy, 18 February, 1S13. 

MY DEAR MRS. GUSHING, 

I HAVE been contemplating writing to you for several weeks 
past ; to inquire after your health and that of your family 
through the winter, but I have delayed it until the voice of 
friendship bids me sympathize with the bereaved sisters and 
relatives over the brave youth who has fallen in defence of 
the injured rights and honor of his country. 

" How beautiful is death when earned by virtue. 
Who would not be that youth ? "What pity is it 
That we can die but once to sen-e our country ? " 

So spake the Roman from the mouth of Cato. So said 
the Father over the dead body of his son. 

'' It is when the foes fly before them that fathers delight in 
their sons. But their sighs burst forth in secret when their 
young warriors yield." ^ 

In the agony of grief for the loss of those most dear, it is 
an alleviation to the wounded bosom to know that they died 

' Ossian. 



LETTERS. 415 

covered with glory in the arms of victory. Long will young 
Aylvvin be remembered and regretted, "by all his country's 
wishes blest." 

To all of you, my afflicted friends, I wish consolation and 
support from a higher source than the honor and fame which 
man can bestow ; 

And am your sympathizing friend, 

A. Adams. 



TO F. A. VANDERKEMP. 1 

Quincy, 3 February, 1814. 

DEAR SIR, 

Ever since your letter to the President, of December last, 
I have had a great inclination to address a letter to Mr. 
Vanderkemp ; and, being now confined to my chamber, by 
an attack of the rheumatism, I find a leisure hour to address 
my friend in his solitude. 

And in the first place, to put him perfectly at his ease, I 
assure him that I make not any pretensions to the character 
of a learned lady, and therefore, according to his creed, I 
am entitled to his benevolence. I can say, with Gay's 
hermit, 

" The little knowledge I have gained, 
Is all from simple nature drained." 

I agree with Mr. Vanderkemp, that, in declaring his 
opinion, he has expressed that of most gentlemen, the true 
cause of which I shall trace no farther than that they con- 
sider a companion more desirable than a rival. In reading 
the life of Madame de Stael, I learn that it was her superior 
talents and learning, perhaps too ostentatiously displayed, 
which produced that coldness, estrangement, and unhappi- 

1 Tlie late Judge Vanderkemp presented the letters which he had received 
from Mrs. Adams to Mrs. Quincy, the wife of the President of Hai-vard Uni- 
versity. By her, they have been, with great kindness, submitted to the dis- 
posal of the Editor, who only regrets the necessity he is under, of confining 
iiimself to a single specimen. 



416 USTTEES. 

ness, which marred all her pleasure with the Baron de Stael, 
soured every domestic enjoyment, and was the occasion of 
that sarcastic question to her by the Emperor Bonaparte. 
Upon some occasion, she had solicited an interview with 
him, and recommended to him some measure for him to 
pursue. He heard her, but made her no other reply than 
this ; " Madam, who educates your children? " 

I like your portrait of female excellence. Solomon has 
also drawn one in the character of a virtuous woman ; but, 
if a sound understanding had not been united with virtuous 
habits and principles, is it probable that he would have rep- 
resented the heart of her husband as safely trusting in her ? 
or that he would have derived so much lustre from her 
character, as to be known in the gates, when he sat with 
the elders of the land ? It is very certain, that a well-in- 
formed woman, conscious of her nature and dignity, is more 
capable of performing the relative duties of life, and of 
engaging and retaining the affections of a man of under- 
standing, than one whose intellectual endowments rise not 
above the common level. 

There are so few women who may be really called 
learned, that I do not wonder they are considered as black 
swans. It requires such talents and such devotion of time 
and study, as to exclude the performance of most of the 
domestic cares and duties which exclusively fall to the lot 
of most females in this country. I believe nature has as- 
signed to each sex its particular duties and sphere of ac- 
tion, and to act well your part, " there all the honor lies." 

Have you seen John Randolph's letter, and Mr. Lloyd's 
reply } 

Present me in friendly terms to Mrs. Vanderkemp. Tell 
her, I wish we were neighbours. I should then have a 
pleasure which our residence in the country deprives us of, 
that of the society and converse of a gentleman of taste, 
science, and extensive information ; and, although much of 
his learning might be above my comprehension, his benevo- 
lence, politeness, and urbanity would render it grateful, and 
be in unison with the good-will and friendship entertained 
for him by Abigail Adams. 



LETTERS. 417 



TO MRS. WARREN. 

Quiiicy, 5 May, 1814 

DEAR MADAM, 

I MOST sincerely sympathize with you and the bereaved, 
distressed family, at Washington, in the dispensation of 
Heaven which has broken asunder the last paternal liga- 
ment, and left you the only surviving pillar of the once 
numerous edifice. To us who, in the course of. nature 
expect and hope to join the spirits of the just, are consolations 
which to the bereaved widow and children are more distant 
and remote, for they may survive to feel all the anguish of 
a long separation and to lament the loss of a tender, affec- 
tionate, attentive husband and doating father. He died at 
his post, probably a sacrifice to over exertion and too great 
a weight and press of business for his years. He died with 
the love, respect and esteem of his country, having for 
twenty-five years exhibited a striking example of attention 
and punctuality worthy of imitation. 

/ If we live to old age, " string after string is severed from 
the heart " until, as one expresses it, we have scarcely any 
thing left to resign but breath./ To a mind elevated and 
endowed like your own, full of confidence and hope, you 
can look through nature up to nature's God, and " trust the 
ruler with his skies," — sure that all events are permitted 
and controlled by infinite wisdom, justice and benevolence. 
The circumstance of losing a friend ^ distant from home 
must add to the pain of my dear relative, and her return to 
her own habitation be solitary indeed. Mr. Otis was a most 
pleasant companion both at home and abroad. When at 
Philadelphia, I lived in constant habits of intimacy and 
friendly intercourse with the family, and was witness to the 
cheerfulness and urbanity of his manners, which in public 
life secured him against the shafts of malice. He was 
always moderate, and never imposed his own opinions upon 

* Samuel Allyne Otis, the youngest brother of Mrs. Warren. 
27 



418 LEtTERS. 

those who dissented from him upon political questions. He 
was firm in his own and decided, but left others the same 
liberty. Accordingly, for twenty-five years, that he acted 
as secretary to the Senate of the United States, amidst all 
the conflicts of party, he retained the love and esteem of 
that body. 

I need not say to you, who so well know his character, 
that he adorned the doctrine which he professed as a Chris- 
tian, liberal, candid and charitable. His uniform habits of 
temperance and sobriety and uninterrupted health gave him 
a vigor which promised a much longer duration and made 
him dear to his family and friends. Few of the infirmities 
of age were discoverable in him. His loss will be most 
keenly felt by his partner and his dear daughters. 

I know, my dear Madam, you will offer to them all the 
sympathy and consolation which your own experience can 
suggest and which supported you through a similar trying 
scene. That you may still enjoy the consolations and sup- 
port of the Most High, and finally be received to the mansions 
of the blest, is ardently hoped for 

By your affectionate friend, 

Abigail Adams, 



TO MRS. SHAW. 

Quincy, 30 December, 1814. 

MY DEAR SISTER, 

Your imagination was so glowingly alive in your last de- 
scriptive letter that mine lags after it in vain. From the 
vivid warmth of the coloring I should fancy that the cold 
north wind had not blown rudely upon you this season. 

For the numberless blessings which have crowned the 
past year my heart glows with gratitude and my mind ex- 
pands in grateful acknowledgment to that bountiful Being 
who hath made me to differ from many others. 

In the year past, several of my friends and acquaintance 



LETTERS. 419 

have ceased from their labors. Their works remain with 
us. In the death of Mrs. Warren ^ and Vice President 
Gerry I recognize that of no ordinary characters. Mrs. 
Warren was Uke a shock of corn fully ripe for the harvest. 
The celestial spirit which animated the clay was not alto- 
gether extinct. It ascended to catch new life and vigor in 
the pure regions of bliss and to share in the joys of our 
heavenly inheritance. 

W^ith Mr. Gerry died one of the first and oldest patriots 
of the revolution — a firm, steady and unshaken friend of 
more than fifty years ripening. " Such friends grow not 
thick on every bough." His age promised a longer life 
and his usefulness was not impaired by it. " Back- wound- 
ing calumny the whitest virtue strikes." He shared largely 
in the abuse of party factions and may have been kindly 
recalled before the next election lacerated his reputation 
and bespattered his fair and honorable fame. I rejoice that 
Mr. Gore's motion in the Senate prevailed, and think it an 
honorable trait in that gentleman's character to whom Mr. 
Gerry had been a successful political competitor and rival, 
to show himself superior to political division, and become 
the friend of the family by exerting himself to assist it. 
This is the temper and spirit of a Christian. 

Adieu. Your sister, 

A. A. 



TO MRS. DEXTER.'^ 

Quincy, 12 May, 1816. 

DEAR MADAM, 

How can I address you, or offer human consolation for a 

1 Of Mrs. Warren, so often mentioned in this collection, and to whom 
many of these letters are addressed, it is much to be regretted that some 
more extended notice does not exist. She was one of the remarkable 
women of the heroic age of the United States. 

2 To Mi's. Dexter, the Editor is indebted for furnishing him, at liis request, 
with this letter written upon the death of her husband. Mr. Samuel Dex- 
ter had been a member of Mr. Adams's cabinet in the period of his Presi- 
dency. 



420 ' LETTERS. 

wound which must bleed afresh at every attempt to assuage 

it? 

Yet if the tears of friendship, and a nation's tears can 
afford any relief, be assured, dear Madam, they flow from 
all honest hearts, for you, for your children and for a coun- 
try which mourns one of its brightest luminaries extin- 
guished. A great man, fallen in the zenith of his glory — 
and in the estimation of his ancient friend, the ablest states- 
man of his age which his native state could boast. It is no 
common loss we bewail. Such an assemblage of powerful 
talents rarely meet in one individual united to such an up- 
right and independent mind, which soared above all low 
concerns, and was elevated beyond all selfish considerations 
and party views. 

In domestic life, your own heart alone can do justice to 
his memory. The news of the death of Mr. Dexter so 
sudden, so unexpected, was felt by Mr. Adams and myself 
with the keenest anguish. Out of your own immediate 
circle you have not any on-e who more sincerely, tenderly 
and affectionately sympathizes with you, or who more fer- 
vently supplicates the Supreme Being to support and sus- 
tain you than your sorrowing friend, 

Abigail Adams. 



APPENDIX. 



APPENDIX 



No. I. 



JOHN ADAMS TO JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 

Amsterdam, 14 December, 1781. 

IVrr DEAR SON, 

Your letter of 21 August, 0. S., the first I have received, reached 
me only two or three days ago. 

I am pleased to see your handwriting improve, as well as your 
judgment ripen, as you travel ; but I am above all happy to find 
that your behavior has been such as to gain the confidence of Mr. 
Dana, so far as to employ you in copying. This employment 
requires a great deal of patience and steadiness, as well as care. 
It will be of vast use to you, to be admitted thus early into busi- 
ness, especially into business of such importance. 

Make it a rule, my dear son, to lose no time. There is not a 
moral precept of clearer obligation or of greater import. Make 
it the grand maxim of your life, and it cannot fail to be happy 
and useful to the world. 

You have my consent to have any masters which Mr. Dana 
thinks proper for you. But you will have none upon whom I 
shall depend so much as upon him. He will form your moral and 
political principles, and give you a taste for letters as well as busi- 
ness, if you can but be so wise and happy as to continue to de- 
serve his confidence, and be admitted to assist him in copying his 
business. 

Write me often. Let me know the state of education and letters 
in St. Petersburg. Pray do you hear any thing of a passage by 
land from Russia to America? What discoveries have been 
made? 

It is not necessary to add my name when I assure you of my 
affection. 



424 APfENDIX. 



JOHN ADAMS TO JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 

Amsterdam, 15 December, 1781. 

MY DEAR CHILD, 

This day Mr. Sayre arrived with your letter of the 12-23 of Octo- 
ber. Yours of August I answered yesterday. 

You have not informed me whether the houses are built of brick, 
stone, or wood ; whether they are seven stories high, or only one; 
how they are glazed ; whether they have chimneys as in Spain ; 
what public buildings, what maison de ville or state house ; what 
churches ; what palaces ; what statuary ; what paintings, music, 
spectacles, &c. 

You have said nothing of the religion of the country ; whether 
it is Catholic or Protestant; what is the national church ; whether 
there are many sectaries ; whether there is a toleration of various 
religions, &c. 

I think the price for a master is intolerable. If there is no 
academy nor school, nor a master to be had, I really don't know 
what to say to your staying in Russia. You had better be at 
Leyden, where you might be in a regular course of education. 
You might come in the spring in a Russian, Swedish, or Prussian 
vessel to Embden perhaps, or Hamborough, and from thence here 
in a neutral bottom. Still I am afraid of your being too trouble- 
some to Mr. D. However, I rely upon it, that you follow your 
studies with your wonted assiduity. It is strange if no dictionary 
can be found in French or English. 

I don't perceive that you take pains enough with your hand- 
writing. Believe me from experience, if you now in your youth 
resolutely conquer your impatience, and resolve never to write the 
most familiar letter, or trifling card, without attention and care, it 
will save you a vast deal of time, and trouble too, every day of 
your whole life. When the habit is got, it is easier to write well 
than ill ; but this habit is only to be acquired in early life. 

God bless my dear son, and preserve his health and his manners 
from the numberless dangers that surround us wherever we go in 
this world. So prays your affectionate father. 

J. Adams. 



APPENDIX. 425 



HONORED SIR, 



JOHN QUINCY ADAMS TO JOHN ADAMS. 

St. Petersburg, 11-2 January, 1782. 



Last night I received your letters of the 14th and 15th December. 
You make me a great number of questions at a time, but I will 
answer them as well as I can. 

The houses are for the most part built of brick, and plastered 
over. They are from two to four stories high. They are glazed 
with large panes, as in France. In the winter they have double 
windows, which are taken down in the spring, that is, in the 
months of May or June. They have no chimneys but stoves, of 
which I have given a description to Mr. Thaxter. I don't know 
any thing about their state house, but I believe it is nothing extra- 
ordinary. Voltaire says there are thirty-five churches here, but 1 
believe, if any body had set him about finding them out, he would 
have found it very difficult. There is a church building here upon 
the plan of St. Peter's at Rome. It was to be entirely finished in 
fifteen years, has been already worked upon twenty-five, and is far 
from being half done. There are, I believe, but two palaces in 
the city, in one of which her Majesty resides in the winter. It is 
called the summer palace. The empress stays all summer at a 
palace called Czarskozelo, about twenty-five English miles from 
the city. There is no famous statuary or paintings that I know 
of. There are concerts once a week in several places. There is 
a German, an Italian and a French comedy here. The last is in 
the palace. 

The religion is neither Roman Catholic nor Protestant, but, as 
Voltaire has, in his history of Peter the Great, treated upon that 
subject, I will give you what he says about it. 

[Here follow extracts carefully made from the second chapter 
of the first part of Voltaire's work.] 

I don't wonder you find it strange that there is no good diction- 
ary to be had ; but there is nobody here but slaves and princes. 
The slaves can't have their children instructed, and the nobility 
that choose to have theirs send them into foreign countries. There 
is not one school to be found in the whole city. 

I am your dutiful son, 

J. Q. Adams. 



426 APPENDIX. 



JOHN ADAMS TO JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 
MY CHILD, 



-"J 



Yours of 20-31 March I have received. 

I am vi'ell pleased with your learning German , for many rea- 
sons, and principally because I am told that science and literature 
flourish more at present in Germany than any where. A variety 
of languages will do no harm unless you should get a habit of 
attending more to words than things. 

/ But, my dear boy, above all things, preserve your innocence and 
a pure conscience. Your morals are of more importance, both to 
yourself and the world, than all languages and all sciences. The 
least stain upon your character will do more harm to your happi- 
ness than all accomplishments will do it good. I give you joy of 
the safe arrival of your brother, and the acknowledgment of the 
independence of your country in Holland. 

Adieu. 

J. Adams. 



JOHN ADAMS TO JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 

Hotel des Etats Unis a la Haye, 13 May, 1782. 
MY dear son, 

I HAVE the pleasure to inform you that yesterday I removed into 
this house, and am now employed in setting it in order. You will 
see by the Gazettes that I have been received in character ; that I 
have laid before the States a plan of a treaty which they have now 
under consideration, and which, T suppose, will be soon finished. 

The bearer of this. Colonel Valentin, will deliver it. Perhaps 
he may be serviceable to you, I am, however, very uneasy on 
your account. I want you with me. Mr. Thaxter will probably 
leave me soon, and I shall be alone. I want you to pursue your 
studies, too, at Leyden. Upon the whole, I wish you would em- 
bark in a neutral vessel and come to me. If there should be a 
treaty to send, Mr. Thaxter perhaps will carry it. 

Your studies, I doubt not, you pursue, because I know you to 
be a studious youth ; but, above all, preserve a sacred regard to 
your own honor and reputation. Your morals are worth all the 



APPENDIX. 427 

sciences. Your conscience is the minister plenipotentiary of God 
Almighty in your breast. See to it that this minister never nego- 
tiates in vain. Attend to him in opposition to all the courts in the 
world. ■ So charges your affectionate father, 

J. Adams. 



No. II. 

CONTAINING ELEVEN LETTERS ON THE STUDY OF THE 

BIBLE, 

ADDRESSED TO HIS SON, BY JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 

In the year 1809, Mr. Adams was appointed Minister Plenipo- 
tentiary of the United States to the court of St. Petersburgh. He 
accordingly embarked from Boston on the 5th of August of that 
year, taking with him of his family, his wife and the youngest of 
three sons. The other two were left at home under the care of 
their grandparents, until the year 1815, when they rejoined their 
parents, then transferred to London. During the interval Mr. 
Adams kept up his correspondence with them, and as far as he 
could, endeavored to exercise a beneficial influence over their minds. 
The letters now published form one of the results of his labors of 
that period. Though addressed in form to his eldest son, who was 
then ten years old, they were designed for the use of all his 
children. None of these survived him with the single exception 
of the editor of this volume, by whom they are now presented to 
the attention of all young persons in the United States, in the 
hope that they may be found useful in stimulating their desire to 
make themselves familiar with the invaluable treasures of the 
sacred volume. 



LETTER I. 



• TO MR. G. W. ADAMS — QUINCY, 

St. Petersburg-, 1-8 September, 1811. 

MY DEAR SON, 

In your letter of 18 January to your mother you mentioned that 
you read to your Aunt Cranch a chapter in the Bible, or a section 
of Dr. Doddridge's annotations, every evening. This information 



428 JfPPENDIX. 

Igave me great pleasure, for so great is my veneration for the Bible, 
and so strong my belief, that when duly read and meditated upon, 
lit is of all the books in the world that which contributes most to 
lake men good, wise and happy, that the earlier my children 
)egin to read it, and the more steadily they pursue the practice of 
reading it throughout their lives, the more lively and confident 
?i\\ be my hopes, that they will prove useful citizens to their 
country, respectable members of society, and a real blessing to 
Jheir parents. 

But I hope that you have now arrived at an age to understand 
that reading, even of the Bible, is a thing in itself neither good nor 
bad, but that all the good that can be drawn from it, is by the use 
and improvement of what you have read, with the help of your 
own reflections. Young people sometimes boast of how many 
books and how much they have read ; when instead of boasting, 
they ought to be ashamed of having wasted so much time to so 
little profit. I advise you, my son, in whatsoever you read, and 
most of all in reading the Bible, to remember that it is for the 
purpose of making you wiser and more virtuous. 

I ha.ve rnyselffor many yeap.4nad^_k a^acticet9J:^dthrj^ugh 
thG^..SiJ^;Je^once"'ev&^^^y^ it 

with thesanT'5''s^JTTfntwrtem of mind which I now recommend 
to you. That is, with the intention and desire that it may con- 
tribute to my advancement in wisdom and virtue. My desire is 
indeed very imperfectly successful, for like you, and like the Apostle 
Paul, I find a law in my members warring against the law of my , 
mind. But as I know that it is my nature to be imperfect, so I 
know it is my duty to aim at perfection ; and feeling and deploring 
my own frailties, I can only pray Almighty God, for the aid of his 
spirit to strengthen my good desires and to subdue my propensi- 
ties to evil. For it is from him that every good and every perfect 
gift descends. 

My custom is to read four or five chapters of the Bible every 
morning immediately after rising from bed. It employs about an 
hour of my time, and seems to me the most suitable manner of 
beginning the day. But as other cares, duties and occupations 
engage the remainder of it, I have, perhaps, never devoted a suffi- 
cient portion of my hours to meditation upon what I have thus 
read. Even meditation itself is often fruitless unless it h'^s some 
special object in view. Useful thoughts arise in the mind and 
pass away without being remembered or ever applied to any good 
purpose; like seed scattered upon the surface of the ground, 
which the birds devour, or the wind blows away, or which rots 
without taking root, however good the soil may be upon wjiich it 
is cast. 



1 



APPENDIX. 429 

We are all, my dear George, unwilling to confess our own in- 
firmities, even to ourselves ; and when our own consciences are too 
honest to conceal them from us, our self-love is always busy either 
in attempting to disguise them to us, under false and delusive 
colors, or in seeking out excuses and apologies to reconcile them 
to our own minds. Thus, although I am always sensible that I 
have not derived from my assiduous perusal of the Bible (and I 
might apply the same remark to almost every thing else that I do) 
all the benefit that I might and ought, I am as constantly endea- 
vouring to persuade myself that it is not my own fault. Some- 
times I say to myself, I do not understand what I have read — I 
cannot help it. I did not make my own understanding. There 
are many things in the Bible hard to be understood, as St. Peter 
expressly says of Paul's Epistles. Some are hard in the Hebrew 
and Greek, the original languages in which the Scriptures were 
written. Some are harder still in the translations. 1 have been 
obliged to lead a wandering life about the world, and 'scarcely 
ever have at hand the books which might help me to surmount 
the difficulties. Conscience sometimes asks the question, whe- 
ther my not understanding many passages is not owing to my 
want of attention in reading them? I must admit that it is ; a full 
proof of which is, that every time that I read the book through, 
J do understand some passages which I never understood be- 
fore, and which I should have understood at a former reading 
had it been effected with a sufficient degree of attention. Then 
in answer to myself I say. It is true ; but I cannot always 
command at all my own attention, and never can to the de- 
gree that I should wish. My mind is oftentimes so full of other 
things — absorbed in bodily pain, or engrossed by passions, or dis- 
tracted by pleasures, or exhausted by dissipation, that I cannot 
give to my proper daily employment the attention that I gladly 
would, and that is absolutely necessary to make it ''fruitful of 
good works." This acknowledgment of my weakness is just. 
But for how much of it I am still accountable to myself and to 
God, I hardly dare acknowledge to myself. Is it bodily pain? — 
How often was that brought upon me by my own imprudence and 
folly 1 Was it passion ? — Heaven has given to every human being 
the power of controlling his passions, and if he neglects or uses 
it, the fault is his own, and he must be answerable for it. Was it 
pleasure 1 — Why did I indulge in it ? Was it dissipation? — This- 
is the most inexcusable of all ; for it must have been occasioned 
by my own thoughtlessness or irresolution. 

It is of no use to discover our own faults and infirmities, unless 
the discovery prompts us to amendment. I have thought that if, in 



430 APPENDIX. 

addition to the daily hour which I give to the reading of the Bible, 
I should also, from time to time, and especially on Sundays, apply 
another occasional hour to communicate to you the reflections which 
arise in my mind upon its perusal, it might not only tend to fix 
and promote my own attention to the excellent instructions of that 
book, but perhaps also your advancement in its knowledge and 
wisdom. At your age it is probable that you have still greater 
difficulties to understand all that you read in the Bible, than I 
have at mine ; and if you have as much self-observation as your 
letters show, you will be sensible of as much want of attention, 
both voluntary and involuntary, as I have acknowledged in my- 
self. I intend, therefore, for the purpose of contributing to your 
improvement and my own, to write you several letters, in due time 
to follow this, and in which I shall endeavour to show you how 
you may derive the most advantage to yourself, from the perusal 
of the Scriptures. It is probable that when you receive the let- 
ters, you will not, on first reading them, entirely understand them. 
If that should be the case, ask your grandparents, or your uncle or 
aunt, to explain them to you ; and if you still find them too hard, 
put them upon file, and lay them by two or three years, after 
which, read them again, and you will find them easy enough. 

It is essential, my son, in order that you may go through this 
life with comfort to yourself and usefulness to your fellow-crea- 
tures, that you should form and adopt certain rules or principles 
for the government of your own conduct and temper. Unless you 
have such rules and principles, there will be numberless occasions 
on which you will have no guide for your government but your 
passions. In your infancy and youth, you have been, and wall be 
for some years, under the authority and control of your friends 
and instructors, but you must soon come to the age when you must 
govern yourself. You have already come to that age in many re- 
spects. You know the diflference between right and wrong. You 
know some of your duties, and the obligation you are under of 
becoming acquainted with them all. It is in the Bible that you 
must learn them, and from the Bible how to practise them. 

Those duji^Ss^jxe-— =vto_,S^i^2_;;— toyoui^^ — and 

to j/purs^^,- ^^'^Sia^u.^^iSltNlavOBS^^^Qor^^ 
hekrt, and with all thy soul, and with all thy min3, and witlt all 
thy strength, and thy neighbor as thyself." (Luke x. 27.) "On 
these two commandments," (Jesus Christ expressly says) "hang 
all the Law and the Prophets." (Matt. xxii. 40.) That is to say, 
that the whole purpose of divine revelation is to inculcate them 
efficaciously upon the minds of men. 

You will perceive that I have spoken of duties to yourself, dis- 



APPENDIX. 431 

tinct from those to God and to^our fellow-creatures ; while Jesus 
Christ speaks of only two commandnrients. The reason is, be- 
cause Christ and the commandment repeated by him consider 
self-love as so implanted in the heart of every man by the law of 
his nature, that it required no other commandment to establish its 
influence over the heart. And so great do they know its power 
to be, that they demand no other measure for the love of our 
neighbor, than that which they know we shall have for our- 
selves. But from the love of God, and the love of our neighbor, 
result duties to ourselves as well as to them, and they are all to be 
learnt in equal perfection by searching the Scriptures. 

Let us then search the Scriptures. And in order to pursue our 
inquiries with methodical order, let us consider the various sources 
of instruction that we may draw from in this study. The Bible 
contains the Revelation of the Will of God ; it contains the history 
of the creation of the world and of mankind, and afterwards the 
history of one peculiar nation — 6i^rt3ijily-%h^nre*fr'^9**«R>*4i^^ 
nation 4h^Jba§.■-a^J^-ap^J£i^re(^^up)»r^^^^ It contains a system 
of religion and of morality, which we may examine upon its own 
merits, independent of the sanction it receives from being the 
Word of God ; and it contains a numerous collection of books, 
written at different ages of the world, by different authors, which 
we may survey as curious monuments of antiquity, and as literary 
compositions. In what light soever we regard it, whether with 
reference to revelation, to history, to morality, or to literature, it 
is an invaluable and inexhaustible mine of knowledge and virtue. 

I shall number separately these letters that I mean to write you 
on the subject of the Bible. And as after they are finished, I shall 
perhaps ask you to read them all together, or to look over them 
again myself, you must keep them on a separate file. I wish that 
hereafter they may be useful to your brothers and sister, as well 
as to you. As you will receive every one of them as a token of my 
affection for you during my absence, I pray that they may all be 
worthy of being read by them all with benefit to themselves, if it 
please God that they may live to be able to understand them. 

From your affectionate Father. 

A. 



432 APt»ENDIX, 



LETTER II. 

TO MR. G. W. ADAMS. 

St. Pelersbui-g-, 15 September, 1811. 

The first point of view in which I have invited you to consider the 
Bible, is in the light of a Divine Revelation. And what are we to 
understand by these terms ? I intend, as much as possible, to 
avoid the field of controversy, with which I am not well ac- 
quainted, and for which I have little respect and still less inclina- 
tion. My idea of the Bible, as a Divine Revelation, is founded 
upon its practical use to mankind, and not upon metaphysical 
subtleties. 

There are three points of doctrine, the belief of which forms 
the foundation of all human morality. The first is the existence 
of God ; the second is the immortality of the human soul ; and the 
third is a future state of rewards and punishments. Suppose it 
possible for a man to disbelieve either of these three articles of 
faith, and that man will have no conscience. He will have no 
other law than that of the tiger and the shark. The laws of man 
may bind him in chains, or may put him to death, but they never 
can make him wise, virtuous, or happy. It is possible to believe 
them all, without believing that the Bible is a Divine Revelation. 
It is so obvious to every reasonable being, that he did not make 
himself, and that the world which he sees could as little make 
itself, that the moment we begin to exercise the power of reflec- 
tion, it seems impossible to escape the conviction that there is a 
Creator. It is equally evident that this Creator must be a spiritual 
and not a material Being. There is also a consciousness that the 
thinking part of our nature is not material, but spiritual — that it 
is not subject to the laws of matter, and, therefore, not perishable 
with it. Hence arises the belief that we possess an immortal 
soul. Pursuing the train of thought which the visible creation 
and observation upon ourselves suggests, we must soon discover 
that the Creator must also be the Governor of the Universe ; that 
His power. His wisdom, and His goodness must be without bounds 
— that he is a righteous God, and loves righteousness — that man- 
kind are bound by his laws of righteousness, and accountable to 
him for their obedience to them ; and that as he does not always 
reward or punish them in this life, according to their good or evil 
deeds, the completion of divine justice must be reserved for an- 
other life. 



APPENDIX. 433 

The existence of a Creator, the immortality of the human soul, 
and the future state of retribution, are therefore so perfectly con- 
genial to natural reason when once discovered, or rather it is so 
impossible to natural reason to disbelieve them, that it would seem 
the light of natural reason would alone suffice for their discovery. 
But this conclusion would not be exact. Human reason may be 
sufficient to get an obscure glimpse of these sacred and important 
truths, but it cannot discover them in all their clearness. For 
example — In all the numberless false religions which have swayed 
the minds of men in different regions and ages of the world, the 
idea of a God has always been included. 

" Father of all — in every age, 
In every clime adored 
By saint, by savage and by sage, 
Jehovah — Jove — or Lord." 

So says Pope's universal prayer. But it is the God of the 
Hebrews alone, it is the God revealed to us in the Bible alone, 
who is announced as the Creator of the world. The ideas of God 
entertained by all the most illustrious and most ingenious nations 
of antiquity, were weak and absurd. The Persians worshipped 
the Sun. The Egyptians believed in an innumerable multitude of 
gods, and worshipped not only oxen, crocodiles, dogs and cats, but 
even 'garlicks and onions. The Greeks invented a poetical religion 
and adored men and women, virtues and vices, air, water, fire, 
and every thing that a vivid imagination could personify. Almost 
all the Greek philosophers reasoned and meditated upon the nature 
of the gods, but scarcely any of them ever reflected enough even 
to imagine that theie was but one God, and not one of them ever 
conceived of him as the Creator of the world. Cicero has collected 
together all their opinions upon the nature of the gods, and pro- 
nounces that they are more like the dreams of madmen, than the 
sober judgments of wise men. 

In the first book of Ovid's Metamorphoses there is an account 
of the change of chaos into the world. Before the sea and the 
earth and the sky that surrounds all things (says Ovid) there was a 
thing called chaos, and some one of the gods, he does not know which^ 
separated from one another the elements of this chaos, and turned 
them into a world. Thus far and no farther could human reason 
extend. But the first words of the Bible are " In the beginning, 
God created the Heaven and the Earth." This blessed and 
sublime idea of God, the creator of the universe — this source 
of all human virtue and all human happiness, for which all the 

28 



434 APPENDIX. 

sagres and philosophers of Greece and Rome groped in darkness 
and never found, is revealed in the first verse of the Book of Genesis. 

I call it the source of all human virtue and happiness, because 
when y^e have once attained the conception of a being, who by 
the mere act of his will created the world, it would follow as an 
irresistible consequence even if we were not so expressly told, 
that the same being must also be the Governor of his own creation. 
That man, with all other things, was also created by him and 
must hold his felicity and his virtue on the condition of obedience 
to His will. In the first chapters of the Bible, there is a short 
and rapid historical narrative of the manner in which the world 
and man were made ; of the condition upon which happiness and 
immortality were bestowed upon our first parents ; of their transgres- 
sion of this condition, and of the punishment denounced upon them, 
and the promise of redemption from it by " the seed of the ivoman,^^ 

There are and always have been, where the holy scriptures have 
been known, petty witlings and self-conceited reasoners who cavil 
at some of the particular details of this narrative. Even serious 
inquirers after truth have sometimes been perplexed to believe 
that there should have been evening and morning before the exist- 
ence of the sun ; that a man should be made of clay and a woman 
from the rib of a man ; that they should be forbidden to eat an 
apple, and for disobedience to that injunction, be with all their 
posterity doomed to death ; that a serpent should speak, and 
beguile a woman ; and that eating an apple could give the 
knowledge of good and evil. All this is undoubtedly marvellous, 
and above our comprehension. Much of it is figurative and alle- 
gorical ; nor is it easy to distinguish, what part of it is to be 
understood in a literal, and what in a symbolical sense. But that 
which it imports us to understand is plain. The great and essential 
principles upon which our duties and enjoyments depend are involved 
in no obscurity — A God, the creator and governor of the universe, 
is revealed in all his majesty and power. The terms upon which 
he gave existence and happiness to the common parent of mankind 
are exposed to us in the clearest light. Disobedience to the will of 
God, was the offence for which he was precipitated from Para- 
dise. Obedience to the will of God is the merit by which Paradise 
is to be regained. 

Here, then, is the foundation of all morality ; the source of all 
our obligations as accountable creatures. This idea of the tran- 
scendent power of the Supreme Being is essentially connected 
with that by which the whole duty of man is summed up in obedi- 
ence to his will. I have observed that natural reason might 
suffice for an obscure perception, but not for the clear discovery of 



APPENDIX. 



435 



these truths. Even Cicero could start to his own mind the ques- 
tion whether justice could exist upon earth, unless founded upon 
piety, but could not settle it to his own satisfaction. " Haud scio," 
says he, " an pietate adversus deos sublata, fides etiam et societas 
humani generis et una excellentissima virtus, justitia tollatur." 
The ray of divine light contained in the principle that justice has 
no other foundation than piety, could make its way to the soul of 
the heathen, but there it was extinguished in the low, unsettled and 
inconsistent notions, which were the only foundations of his piety. 
How could his piety be fure or sound when he did not know 
whether there was one God or a thousand ; whether he or they 
had or had not any concern in the formation of the world, and 
whether they had any regard to the affairs or the conduct of man- 
kind? Once assume the idea of a single God, the Creator of all 
things, whose will is the law of moral obligation to man, and to 
whom man is accountable, and j)kty becomes as rational as it is 
essential. It becomes the first of human duties, and not a doubt 
can thenceforth remain, that fidelity and the association of human 
kind, and that most excellent virtue of justice, " repose upon no 
other foundation." 

At a later age than Cicero, Longinus expressly quotes the third 
verse of the first chapter of the book of Genesis as an example of 
the sublime — " And God said, let there be light, and there was 
light." And wherein consists its sublimity? In the image of 
transcendent power presented to the mind with the most striking 
simplicity of expression. Yet this verse only exhibits one of the 
effects of that transcendent power which the first verse discloses in 
announcing God as the Creator of the world. The true sublimity 
is in the idea given us of God. To such a God piety is but a rea- 
sonable service. To such a (lod the heart of man must yield with 
cheerfulness the tribute of homage, which it never could pay to 
the bleating gods of Egypt, to the dissolute debauchees of the 
Grecian mythology, nor even to the more elevated, but no less 
fantastical, imaginations of the Grecian philosophers and sages. 

I shall resume this subject in another letter. It is more than a 
month since we have received any letters from America. 

From your father. 

A. 



436 APPENDIX. 



LETTER HI. 

TO MR. G. W. ADAMS. 

St. Petersburg, 22 September, 1811. 

MY DEAR GEORGE, 

My last letter contained the substance, but not the form, of an 
argument for considering the Bible as a divine revelation. It 
explicitly stated the three points of belief which I deemed indis- 
pensable to the happiness, the virtue, and improvement of man- 
kind. 1. ThQ^exi^t^nce^^i^^aiLQ^J^o^^^ 
of the^un^.e^;sej^.5Jl3]p^Ucu^ 
or]n^?]so^L^^.v._^^jE«tui&^^ 

sPiovved^you that the natural and ordinary powers of the human 
mind are not sufficient for the discovery of these truths ; that they 
are disclosed in the Bible by special and distinct revelations from 
God in a manner altogether different from the ordinary course of 
nature. And hence it follows that the Bible, considered as divine 
revelation, contains a series of direct communications from the 
Creator of mankind to individual persons, which have been by 
some of them committed to writing, and which include a code of 
moral and religious laws suitable for all mankind, and binding 
upon all who are blest with the knowledge of it. 

But if the belief of these doctrines be essential to the happiness, 
virtue, and improvement of mankind, why were they particularly 
disclosed by revelation to a few individuals of a single nation ? 
Why were they not made discoverable to all men by the simple 
operation of their reason 1 The answers to these questions are 
also to be found in the Bible. The first parents of mankind were 
created immortal, innocent, and happy. But they were created 
free. The tenure of their blessed state was on the condition of 
obedience to the will of God. This condition they violated. 
They forfeited by their transgression their immortality, their inno- 
cence, their happiness. \^ii4li ttiem4h&y4Qst.theii;Dost£]il,j;^^ 
could be redeemed to their original state, only by themtervention 
(^^ Savtoin-. Ainong'The rois^es^oilglrriipon nianlihTd" by 
tnis~apostasy of their ancestor, was the loss of the knowledge of 
the true God, and of their own immortality. This loss was not, 
.however, total in any part of the world ; a remnant of it was every- 
where preserved, but in different degrees among different nations. 



APPENDIX. 437 

It was (he purpose of Divine Providence that it should never be 
wholly lost, and that in his due time it should be wholly restored. 
To a succession of patriarchs until Abraham, and afterwards to 
him and his descendants alone, until the appearance of Jesus Christ, 
God continued to communicate his will by special revelation. But* 
even from them he reserved the clear and ceriain hope of a future! 
life ; until Jesus Christ came with glad tidings of great joy to all/ 
mankind ; bringing life and immortality once more to light by the 
gospel. 

.To the three articles of faith, which I have supposed to be essen- 
tial fur all religion and morality, the Bible as a divine revelation adds 
therefore a fourth ; — the original excellent and present fallen 
condition of man. This tenet is peculiar to the religions founded 
upon the Bible, and it has great and numerous consequences upon 
the moral system of Christianity. An omnipotent Creator, an 
immortal soul, and a day of judgment, are sometimes considered 
as the foundation of natural religion, though, after all, independent 
of the Bible, they are mere speculations and conjectures, which 
men may believe or disbelieve, according to the strength or weak- 
ness of their minds. But the fall and redemption of man, with all 
the duties incumbent on us in consequence of them, are taught 
only in the Bible. Obscure and confused traditions preserved 
among the heathen world some memorial of this truth as well as 
of the others. In the mythology of the Greeks it was believed 
that men were originally made virtuous and happy, and had grad- 
ually become vicious and miserable. Hence their poetical fictions 
of the four ages of gold, silver, brass, and iron. But in these 
curious mixtures of forgotten history with inventive fancy there 
were no moral principles involved. They admitted the degeneracy 
of mankind, but they inculcated no precept for its restoration to its 
original purity. They lamented that Asirea had abandoned the 
earth, but they gave no hopes of her returning to it again. 

By admitting the Bible as a divine revelation, we have hopes of 
future felicity inspired together with a conviction of our present 
wretchedness. The blood of the Redeemer has washed out the 
pollution of our original sin, and the certainty of eternal happiness 
in a future life is again secured to us on the primitive condition ol" 
obedience to the will of God. 

By considering the Bible as divine revelation, we acknowledge 
the frequent miraculous interposition of Divine power. The re- 
luctance at coming to this admission is to many persons of the pres- 
ent times the strongest objection to the authority of the sacred 
scriptures. Nature, it is true, operates by general laws, but those 
laws of which we have no knowledge but by inferences which we 



•/ 



438 APPENDIX. 

draw from the observation of their effects, are themselves among 
the evidences of an omnipotent Creator, and it requires no great 
effort of the understanding to perceive that he whose power was 
competent to produce the general rule must also be possessed of 
the power of making every particular exception. The power to 
create being once admitted to exist, it would be arrant trifling to 
cavil about the modes of creating. A miracle is nothing more than a 
'physical phenomenon, different from those which we are accus- 
itomed to observe ; for if by a miracle, we understand merely 
something incomprehensible to our understanding, the growth of 
p spire of grass is as miraculous as any thing related in the Bible. 

In receiving the Bible as a divine revelation, I do not consider 
every part of it, even in the original languages, as having been writ- 
ten by preternatural inspiration from Heaven. I do not suppose it 
necessary to consider the book as exempt from physical, geograph- 
ical and chronological errors. The translations into modern lan- 
guages, and the English translation still used, in particular abound 
with errors. The revelations themselves are of two kinds — those 
which were made to particular persons and for temporary purposes 
— and those which affected the destinies and duties of mankind 
for all ages. 

The forms of revelation which divine wisdom assumed were so 
various and multiplied, that it would require a long dissertation 
and perhaps a large volume to enumerate and explain them. It is 
necessary here only to remark that from the creation until the 
death of Moses, God manifested himself to the Patriarchs some- 
times in human shape, and sometimes by visions, by dreams, and 
by angels, and finally sometimes by voices which were heard in 
the air when there was nothing to be seen. The direct and per- 
sonal intercourse from God to man, ceased from the time of Moses 
until that of Jesus Christ. In Deuteronomy, xxxiv. 10, it is express- 
ly said, " And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto 
Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face." It is the belief of 
the great majority of Christians, that in the person of Jesus Christ, 
God himself again appeared in human form ; that he took upon 
himself the nature of man, to teach mankind his most perfect law, 
and to redeem them from the curse of death by submitting to it 
himself. This however has become a subject of great controversy 
among Christians themselves. I have read very little of the 
*numberless volumes which have been written on both sides of this 
[question. But I have endeavoured by assiduous attention to the 
New Testament, to settle my own opinion concerning it. There 
are so many passages, both in the Gospels and the Epistles, which 
countenance the doctrine of the Divinity of Christ and so many 



APPENDIX. 439 

which appear incompatible with it, that to my judgment it is notf 
among the things clearly revealed. I know not how to order myj 
speech by reason of darkness, and I therefore conclude it is one ofj 
those mysteries, not to be unfolded to me during this present' 
life. < 

But whether Jesus Christ was a manifestation of Almighty God 
in the form of a man, or whether he was but the only begotten Son 
of God, by whom he made the world, and by whom he will judge 
the world in righteousness, I consider as merely a speculative ques4 
tion, which I am not called upon to settle, and about which myj 
only duty is not to suffer my passions or prejudices to be engagea 
on either side. That he came into the world to preach repentance 
and remission of sins, to proclaim glory to God in the highest, anc 
on earth peace, good will to man ; and finally to bring life anc 
immortality to light in the Gospel ; all this is equally clear, i ' 
we consider the Bible as divine revelation ; and all this it imports 
infinitely our conduct in this world and our happiness in the nex 
to know. The rest may be left to a brighter state of existence 
to ascertain. 

Let us now conclude, my dear son, by resuming the duties to God, 
to Our fellow-creatures, and to ourselves, which are derived as im- 
mediate consequences from the admission of the Bible as divine reve- 
lation. 1. Piety. From the first chapter ofthe Old Testament to the 
last of the New, obedience to the will of God is inculcated as in- 
cluding the whole duty of man. 2. Benevolence. The love of our 
neighbors was forcibly taught in the Old Testament, but to teach 
it more effectually was the special object of Christ's mission upon 
earth. "Love," says St. Paul, (Romans xiii. 10,) "is the ful- 
filling of the Law." But Christ, in his discourse to the Apostles 
at the last supper, says, " A new commandment I give unto you, 
that ye love one another ; as I have loved you, that ye also love one 
another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye 
have love one to another." 3. Humility. The profound sense of our 
infirmities which must follow from the doctrine of original sin, and 
of its punishment inflicted upon all human kind, necessarily in- 
spires meekness and lowliness of spirit. These two are com- 
manded in express terms by Jesus Christ, and as principles of 
morality, they are not only different from the maxims of every 
other known system of ethics, but in direct opposition to them. I 
shall, perhaps, on some future occasion, undertake to show you a 
comparative estimate of these three cardinal virtues of Christianity 
with the four cardinal virtues of the heathen philosophers, which 
were, justice, prudence, temperance, and fortitude ; every one oj 
them entitled to the epithet which Cicero gives to the first, of 



440 APPENDIX, 

*' una excellentissima virtus/' but which, as forming the measure 
of human duties, can only serve to show forth in briohler evidence 
the unrivalled superiority of the moral code of the Bible. 

From your affectionate father. 

A. 



LETTER rV. 



MY DEAR SON, 



TO MR. G. W. ADAMS. 

St. Petersbiu-g, 29 September, 1811. 



The second general point of view in which I propose to you to 
consider the Bible, to the great end that it may " thoroughly fur- 
nish you unto all good works," is in its historical character. To 
a man of liberal education the study of History is not only useful 
and important, but altogether indispensable, and with regard to 
the history contained in the Bible, the observation which Cicero 
makes respecting that of his own country is much more emphati- 
cally applicable ; ihatit.is not so much praiseworthy to be acquaint- 
ed with it, as it is shameful to be ignorant of it. 

History, so far as it relates to the actions and adventures of men, 
may be divided into five different classes : — 1 . The history of the 
world, otherwise called universal history. 2. That of particular na- 
tions. 3. Thatof particular institutions. 4. That of single families. 
And 5. Thatof individual men. The two last of these classes are 
generally distinguished by the name of memoirs and of biography. 

All these classes of History are to be found in the Bible, and it 
may be worth your while to discriminate them from one another. 
1. The Universal History is short, and all contained in the first 
eleven chapters of Genesis, together with the first chapter of the 
first book of Chronicles, which is little more than a genealogical list 
of names. But it is of the highest importance, not only as it in- 
cludes the history of the Creation, and of the fall of man, of the 
antediluvian world, and of the flood by which the whole human 
race, excepting Noah and his family, were destroyed, but as it gives 
a very precise chronological account of the fime from the Creation 
until the birth of Abraham. This is the foundation of all ancient 
history, and in reading the profane historians hereafter, 1 would ad- 
vise you always to reflect upon their narrations with reference to it. 
With respect to the chronology, a correct idea of this is so necessary 
to understand all history, ancient and modern, that 1 may hereafter 



APPENDIX. 441 

write you something further concerning it. For the present I shall 
only recommend to your particular attention the fifth and eleventh 
chapters of Genesis, and request you to cast up and write me the 
amount of the world's age, when Abraham was born. 2. The 
remainder of the book of Genesis, beginning at the twelfth chapter, 
is a history of one individual, (Abraham,) and of his family during 
three generations of his descendants. After which the book of 
Exodus commences with the history of the same family multiplied 
into a nation. This national and family history is continued 
through the books of the Old Testament, until that of Job, which 
is of a peculiar character, differing in many particulars from every 
other part of the scriptures. 

There is no other history extant, which can give so interesting 
and correct a view of the rise and progress of human associations, 
as this account of Abraham and his descendants through all the 
vicissitudes to which individuals, families, and nations are liable. 
There is no other history where the origin of a whole nation is 
traced up to a single man, and where a connected chain of events, 
and a regular series of persons from generation to generation is pre- 
served. As the history of a family, it is intimately connected with 
our religious principles and opinions, for it is the family from which 
Jesus Christ in his human character descended. It begins by relating 
the command of God to Abraham to abandon his country, his 
hindred and hhfather''s house, and to go to a land which he would 
show him. This command was accompanied by two promises, 
from which and from their fulfilment arose the differences which T 
have just noticed, between the history of the Jews and that of 
every other nation. The first of these promises was that God 
would make of x^Vbram a great nation, and bless him. The second, 
and incomparably the most important, was that in him (Abram) 
all families of the earth should be blessed. This promise was made 
about two thousand years before the birth of Christ, and in him it 
had its fulfilment. When Abram, in obedience to the command 
of God had gone into the land of Canaan, the Lord appeared to 
him and made him a third promise, which was that he would give 
that land to the nation which should descend from him, as a posses- 
sion. This was fulfilled between five and six hundred years after- 
wards. In reading all the historical books both of the Old and New 
Testament, as we'l as the books of the Prophets, you should 
always bear in mind the reference which they have to these three 
promises of God to Abram. All the history is no more than 
a narrative of the particular manner and the detail of events with 
which those promises were fulfilled. 

In the account of the Creation, and the fall of man, I have already 



442 APPENDIX. 

•remarked that the moral doctrine inculcated by the Bible, is that 

the great consummation of all human virtue consists in obedience to 

like will of God. When we come hereafter to speak of the Bible 

Jin its ethical character, I shall endeavour to show you the intrinsic 

j excellence of this principle, but I shall now only remark how 

strongly the principle itself is illustrated, first by the account of the 

fall, and next by the history of Abraham. 

In the account of the Creation, we are informed, that God, after 
having made the world, created the first human pair and gave them 
dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowls of the air, and 
over every living thing that moveth upon the earth ; and also gave 
them every herb bearing seed, and the fruit of every tree for meat. 
And all this we are told God saw was very good. Thus the im- 
mediate possession of every thing good, was given them, and its 
perpetual enjoyment ensured to their descendants, on the sole 
condition of abstaining from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge 
of good and evil. 

It is altogether immaterial to my present remarks whether this 
narrative is to be understood in an allegorical or a literal sense. 
As not only the knowledge but the possession of all created 
good was granted, the Fruit of the Tree could confer upon them 
no new knowledge, but that of evil, and the command was nothing 
more than to abstain from the knowledge of evil, to forbear from 
rushing upon their own destruction. It is not sufficient to say, 
that this was a command in its own nature light and easy. It was a 
command to pursue the only law of their nature — to keep the hap- 
piness which had been heaped without measure upon them. But 
i observe, it contained the principle of obedience. It was assigned to 
them as a duty, and the heaviest of penalties was denounced upon 
^ its transgression. They were not to discuss the wisdom or justice 
I of this command — they were not to inquire why it had been enjoin- 
' ed upon them, nor could they have the slightest possible motive for 
such an inquiry. Unqualified felicity and immortality was already 
theirs : wretchedness and death were alone forbidden them, but 
placed within their reach merely as a trial of their obedience. They 

I violated the law ; they forfeited their joy and immortality ; they 
" brought into the world death and all our woe." 

Here then is one extreme case in which the mere prmciple of 
obedience could be tried. A command to abstain from that from 
which every motive of reason and every interest would have de- 
terred, had the command never been given. A command given in 
the easiest of all possible forms, requiring not so much as action of 
any kind, but merely forbearance. And as its transgression was so 
severely punished, the only inference we can draw from it is that 



APPENDIX. 443 

the most aggravated of all ctimes and that which includes in itself 
all others is disobedience to the will of God. « 

Let us now consider how the same principle of obedience is 
inculcated in the history of Abraham, by a case in the opposite 
extreme. God commanded Abram to abandon forever his coiintnj, his 
kindred and his father^s house, to go he knew not where, promising, 
as a reward of his obedience, to bless him and his posterity, though 
he was then childless. He was required to renounce every thing 
that could most contribute to the happiness and comfort of his life 
and which was in his actual enjoyment ; to become a houseless, 
friendless wanderer upon earth, on the mere faith of the promises 
that a land should he shown him which his descendants should 
possess ; that they should be a great nation and that through them, 
all mankind should receive in future ages a further blessing. The 
obedience required of Adam was merely to retain all the blessings 
that he enjoyed. The obedience required of Abraham was to sac- 
rifice all those that he possessed for the vague and distant prospect 
of a future compensation, to his posterity. The self-control and 
self-denial required of Adam was in itself the slightest that imagi- 
nation can conceive, but its failure w-as punished by the forfeiture 
of all his enjoyments. The self-dominion to be exercised by Abra- 
ham was of the severest and most painful kind, but its accom- 
plishment will ultimately be rewarded by the restoration of all that 
was forfeited by Adam. But this restoration was to be obtained by 
no ordinary proof of obedience. The sacrifice of mere personal 
blessings, however great, could not lay the foundation for the re- 
demption of mankind from death. The voluntary submission of j 
Jesus Christ to his own death, in the most excruciating and igno- 
minious form, was to consummate the great plan of redemption,y 
but the submission of Abraham to sacrifice his beloved and only 
son, the child promised by God himself, and through whom all the 
greater promises were to be carried into effect, the feelings of na- 
ture, the voice of humanity, the parent's bowels were all required 
to be sacrificed by Abraham, to the blind unquestioning principle of 
obedience to the will of God. The blood of Isaac was not indeed 
shed. The butchery of an only son by the hand of his Father was 
a sacrifice which a merciful God did not require to be completely 
executed. But as an instance of obedience it was imposed upon 
Abraham, and nothing less than the voice of an angel from God, 
could arrest his uplifted arm, and withhold him from sheathing the 
knife in the heart of his child. It was upon this testimonial of 
obedience, that God's promise of redemption was expressly renew- 
ed to Abraham : — "And in thy seed shall all the nations of the 
earth be blessed, because thou hast OBEYED my voice." Gen- 
esis xxii. 18. 



444 i»PENDIX. 

I have not done with this subject, and intend to pursue it in my 
next letter. 

From your Father. 

A. 



LETTER V. 

TO MR. G. W. ADAMS. 

St. Petersburg, 6 October, 1811. 
We were considering the Bible in its historical chara'^ter, and as 
the history of a family. From the moment when the nniversal his- 
tory finishes, that of Abraham begins ; and thenceforward it is the 
history of a family, of which Abraham is the first and Jesus Christ 
the last person. And from the first appearance of Abraham, the 
whole history appears to have been ordered from age to age ex- 
pressly to prepare for the appearance of Christ upon earth. The 
history begins by the first and mildest trial of Abraham's obedi- 
ence, and the promise, as a reward of his fidelity, that in him all 
the families of the earth should be blessed. The second trial, that 
which required the sacrifice of his son, was many years after- 
wards, and the promise was then more explicit, and more pre- 
cisely assigned as the reward of his obedience. There were between 
these periods two intermediate occasions recorded in the fifteenth 
and eighteenth chapters of Genesis, in the first of which the word 
of the Lord came to Abraham in a vision, and promised him that 
he should have a child from whom a great and mighty nation 
should proceed, which, after being in servitude four hundred 
years in a strange land, should become possessors of the land of 
Canaan, from the river of Egypt to the river Euphrates. On the 
second the Lord appeared to him and to his wnfe Sarah, repeated 
the promise that they should have a child, that Abraham should 
surely become a great and mighty nation, and that "all the na- 
tions of the earth should be blessed in him." " For I know him, 
(said the Lord,) that he will command his children and his house- 
hold after him ; and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do 
justice and judgment, that the Lord ma}^ bring upon Abraham that 
which he hath spoken of him." From all which it appears obvi- 
ous that the first of these promises was made as subservient and 
instrumental to the second, that the great and mighty nation was 
to be raised, as the means, in the ways of God's providence, for 



APPENDIX. 445 

producing the sacred person of Jesus Christ, through whom the J 
perfect sacrifice of atonement for the original transgression of man I 
should be consummated, by which all the families of the earth/ 
should be blessed. ' 

I am so little versed in controversial divinity, that I know not 
whether this eighteenth chapter of Genesis has ever been ad- 
duced as an argument in support of the doctriue of the Trinity. 
There is at least in it an alternation of three divine persons and 
of one, not a little remarkable, and which 1 know not how to ex- 
plain. If taken in connection with the nineteenth chapter it would 
seem that one of the three men entertained by Abraham was God 
himself, and that the other two were angels sent by God to de- 
stroy Sodom. Leaving this, however, let me ask your particular 
attention to the reason assigned by God for bestowing such extra- 
ordinary blessings upon Abraham. It unfolds to us the first and 
most important part of the superstructure of moral principles 
erected upon the foundation of phedience JoJIi£ ^wiI l, Mf G ^d. 
The rigorous trials of Abraham's oKecffenceTmenlioned in this and 
my last letter were only tests to ascertain his character in refer- 
ence to the single, and I may say abstract, point of obedience. 
Here we have a precious gleam of light, disclosing what the 
nature of this will of God was, that he should command his child- 
ren and his household after him, by which the parental authority 
to instruct and direct his descendants in the way of the Lord, was 
given him as an authority and enjoined upon him as a duty ; and the 
lessons which he was thus empowered and required to teach his 
posterity were to do justice and judgment. Thus asjobediejii^ to 
the v^^}X.^f'-G€^d-i*~the-first-frrTdsaJi.-eorlf^Il:eheH^ "in 

the^ble^o the^se^ondJs.^^M5/ice«n</^^?i^^ 

and uTis iseX+ritJited as the resultmrtiirally flowing frorntTie other. 
In this same chapter, too, is related the intercession of Abraham 
with God for the preservation of Sodom from destruction. The 
city was destroyed for its crimes, but the Lord promised Abraham 
that the whole city should be spared if in it only ten righieous 
men should be found. The principle of mercy was therefore 
sanctioned in immediate connection with that of justice. 

Abraham had several children, but the great promises of God were 
to be performed through Isaac alone, and of the two sons of Isaac, 
Jacob, ttie youngest only, was selected for the foundation of the sa- 
cred family and nation. It was froin Jacob that the multifdication 
of the family began, and his twelve sons were all included in the 
genealojiy of the tribes which afterwards constituted the Jewish peo- 
ple. Ishmael, the children of Abraham by Keturah, and Esau, the 
eldest son of Isaac, were all the parents of considerable families, 



446 APPENDIX. 

which afterwards spread into nations; but they formed no part of 
the chosen people, and their history, as well as that of other 
neighboring nations, is only incidentally noticed in the Bible so far 
as they had relations of intercourse or of hostility with the people 
of God. 

The history of Abraham and his descendants, to the close of the 
book of Genesis, is a biography of individuals. The incidents re- 
lated of them are all of the class belonging to private and domestic 
life. Joseph, indeed, became a highly distinguished public char- 
acter in the land of Egypt, and it was through him that his father 
and all his brothers were finally settled there ; which was necessary 
, to prepare the existence of their posterity as a nation, and to ful- 
fil the purpose which God had announced to Abraham, that they 
should be four hundred years dwelling in a strange land. In the 
lives of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, many miraculous 
events are recorded, but all those which are spoken of as having 
happened in the ordinary course of human affairs have an air of 
reality about them which »o invention could imitate. In some of 
the transactions related, the conduct of the patriarchs is highly 
blamable : circumstances of deep depravity are particularly told 
of Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, upon which it is necessary 
to remark that these actions are never spoken of with approbation, 
but always with strong marks of censure, and generally with a 
minute account of the punishment which followed upon the trans- 
gression. The vices and crimes of the patriarchs are sometimes 
alleged as objections against the belief that persons guilty of them 
should ever have been specially favored by God ; but, vicious as 
they were, there is every reason to be convinced that they were 
less so than their contemporaries. Their vices appear to us at 
this day gross, disgusting, and atrocious ; but the written law was 
not then given ; the boundaries between right and wrong were not 
defined with the same precision as in the tables given afterwards 
to Moses. The law of nature was the only guide of morality by 
which they could be governed and the sins of intemperance of 
every kind recorded in holy writ were at that period less aggra- 
vated than they would have been in after ages, because they w^ere 
in a great measure sins of ignorance. 

From the time when the sons of Jacob were settled in Egypt, 
until the completion of the four hundred years during which God 
had foretold to Abraham that his family should dwell there, there 
is a chasm in the sacred history. We are expressly told that '*all 
the souls of the house of Jacob which came into Egypt were three- 
score and ten : Genesis xlvi. 26, and Exodus i. 5. It is then 
said, that Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation. 



APPENDIX. 447 

After which nothing further is related of their posterity than that 
they were fruitful, and increased abundantly ; and multiplied and 
waxed exceeding mighty ; and the land was filled with them until 
" there arose up a new king, which knew not Joseph." On his 
first settlement in Egypt Jacob had obtained the grant from 
Pharaoh of the land of Goshen, a place peculiarly suited to the 
pasturage of flocks. Jacob and his sons were shepherds, and this 
circumstance was in the first instance the occasion upon which 
that separate spot was assigned to them, and secondarily was the 
means provided by God, for keeping distinct and separate two na- 
tions thus residing together. 

Every^hepherd was ajja^oiQiimtixm td-4-he-E^ 
the Israelkea w^re'''sKephercls. Although dwelling in the land of 
EgyptTtlierefore, tne^IsraeTrt^ were sojourners and strangers, and 
by a mutual antipathy towards one another, originating in their 
respective conditions of life, they were prevented from intermixing 
together by marriage, and losing their distinctive characters. This 
was the cause which had been reserved by the Supreme Creator, 
during the space of three generations and more than four centuries, 
as the occasion for eventually bringing them out of the land. For 
in proportion as they multiplied, it had the tendency to excite the 
jealousies and fears of the Egyptian king, as actually happened. 
Those jealousies and fears suggested to the king of Egypt a policy of 
the most intolerable oppression, and the most execrable cruelty to- 
wards the children of Israel. Not content with reducing them to 
the most degraded condition of servitude, and making their lives 
bitter with hard bondage, he conceived the project of destroying 
the whole race of them by ordering all the male children to be 
murdered immediately after they were born. In the wisdom of 
Providence this very command was the means of preparing the 
family, thus multiplied into a nation, for their issue from Egypt, 
and for their conquest of the land which had been promised to 
their ancestor Abraham, and it was at the same time the immedi- 
ate occasion of raising up the great warrior, legislator, and prophet, 
who was to be their deliverer and leader. Henceforth they are to 
be considered as a people, and their history as that of a nation. 

During a period of more than a thousand years, the Bible gives 
us a particular account of their destinies. An outline of their con- 
stitution, civil, ecclesiastical and military, with the code of laws 
prescribed to them by the Deity, is contained in the books of Moses, 
and will afford us copious materials for future meditation . Their sub- 
sequent revolutions of government, under Joshua : fifteen succes- 
sive chiefs denominated Judges, and a succession of kings, until 
they were first dismembered into two separate kingdoms, and after 
a lapse of some centuries both conquered by the Assyrians and the 



448 ATPENDIX. 

Bab^'lonians, but at the end of seventy years, partially restored to 
their country and their Temple, constitute the remaining- historical 
books of the Old Testament. Every part of them is full of instruc- 
tion . But my present purpose is only to point your attention to their 
general historical character. My next letter will contain a few- 
remarks on the Bible, as containinj? a system of morals. 

In the mean time I remain your affectionate father. 

A. 



LETTER VI. 

TO MK. G. V^r. ADAMS. 



St. Petersburg, 10 January, 1813. 



MY DEAR SON, 



In the promise with which my last letter to you upon the Bible 
was concluded, that I should next consider the Scriptures in their 
ethical character, as containing a system of morals, I undertook a 
task from the performance of which I have been hitherto deterred 
by its very magnitude and importance. The more I reflected upon 
the subject, the more sensibly did I feel my own incompetency to 
do it justice, and by a weakness too common in the world, from the 
apprehension of inability to accomplish so much as I ought, I have 
hitherto been withheld from the attempt to accomplish any thing 
at all. Thus more than a year has elapsed, leaving me still bur- 
thened with the load of my promise, and in now undertaking to 
discharge it I must premise that you are to expect only the desul- 
tory and undigested thoughts, which I have not the means of com- 
bining into a regular and systematic work. 

I shall not entangle myself in the controversy, which has some- 
times been discussed with a temper not very congenial either to 
the nature of the question itself, or to the undoubted principles of 
Christianity, whether the Bible, like all other systems of morals, 
lays the ultimate basis of all human duties in self-love ; or whether 
it enjoins duties on the principle of perfect and disinterested be- 
nevolence. Whatsoever obligation is sanctioned by a promise of 
reward or a menace of punishment, the ultimate motive for its fulfil- 
ment may justly be attributed to selfish considerations. But ifobedi- 
ence to the will of God be the universal and only foundation of all 
moral duty, special injunctions may be binding upon the consciences 
of men, although their performance should not be secured either by 
the impulse of hope or of fear. 



APPENDIX. 449 

The Law given from Sinai was a civil and municipal as well as 
a moral and religious code. It contained many statutes adapted 
only to that time and to the particular circumstances of the nation 
to whom it was given. They could of course be binding only upon 
them and otdy until abrogated by the same authority which enacted 
them, as they afterwards were by the Christian dispensation. But 
many others were of universal application : laws essential to the 
existence of men in society and most of which have been enacted 
by every nation which ever possessed any code of laws. But as 
the Levitical Law was given by God himself it extended to a great 
variety of objects of infinite importance to the welfare of men, but 
which could not come within the reach of merely human legisla- 
tion. It combined the temporal and spiritual authorities together, 
and regulated not only the actions but the passions of those to 
whom it was given. Human legislators can midertake only to 
prescribe the actions of men. They acknowledge their inability to 
govern or direct the sentiments of the heart. The very definition of 
law styles it a rule of civil conduct, not of internal principle and 
there is no crime in the power of men to perpetrate, which an indi- 
vidual may not project, design, and fully intend, without incurring 
guilt in the eye of human law. It was one of the greatest marks 
of the Divine favor bestowed upon the children of Israel, that their 
Legislator gave them rules not only of action but for the government^ 
of the heart. 

There were occasionally a few short, sententious principles of mo- 
rality issued from the Oracles of Greece. Among them and undoubt- 
edly the most excellent of them was that of self-knowledge {^vihOi 
asuvTOP) which one of the purest moralists and finest poets of 
Rome expressly says came from Heaven. But if you would re- 
mark the distinguishing characteristics between true and false reli- 
gion, compare the manner in which the ten commandments were 
proclaimed by the voice of Almighty God, from Mount Sinai, with 
thunder, lightning, and an earthquake, by the sound of a Trumpet, 
and in the hearing of six hundred thousand souls, with the studied 
secresy, and mystery, and mummery with which the Delphian and 
other oracles of the Grecian gods were delivered The miraculous 
interpositions of Divine power, recorded in every part of the Bible, 
are invariably marked with a grandeur and sublimity worthy of the 
Creator of the world and before which the gods of Homer, not ex- 
cepting his Jupiter, dwindle into the most contemptible of pigmies. 
But on no occasion was the manifestation of the Deity so solemn, 
so awful, so calculated to make indelible impressions upon the 
imagination and souls of the mortals to whom he revealed himself, 
as when he first appeared in the character of their Lawgiver. The 

29 



450 APPENDIX. 

law thus dispensed was imperfect ; it was destined to be partly 
superseded and improved into absolute perfection, many ages 
afterwards, by the appearance of Jesus Christ upon earth; but to 
judge of its excellence as a system of laws, it must be compared 
with the human codes which existed or were promulgated nearly 
at the same age of the world, and in other nations. Remember then 
that this law was given fourteen hundred and ninety years before 
Christ was born. At that time the Assyrian and Egyptian mon- 
archies existed, but of their government and laws we know scarcely 
any thing, but what is to be collected from the Bible itself Of 
the Phrygian, Lydian and Trojan States at the same period, little 
more is known. The President Goguet, in a very ingenious and 
elaborate work on the origin of laws, arts, and sciences among the 
ancient nations, says that the maxims, the civil and political laws 
of these people are absolutely unknown, that not even an idea of 
them can be formed, with the single exception of the Lydians, of 
whom Herodotus asserts that their laws were the same with those 
of the Greeks. 

The same author contrasts the total darkness and oblivion into 
which all the institutions of these mighty empires have fallen, with 
the fulness and clearness and admirable composition of the Hebrew 
code, which has not only descended to us entire, but still constitutes 
the national code of the Jews, scattered as they are over the whole 
face of the earth, and still enters so largely into the legislation of 
almost every civilized nation upon the globe. He observes that 
these laws having been prescribed by God himself, the merely 
human laws of other cotemporary nations cannot bear any compar- 
ison with them ; but my motive in forming this comparison is to 
present it to your reflections as a proof, and to my mind a very 
strong proof of the reality of its Divine origin. For how is it that 
the whole system of government and administration, the municipal, 
political, ecclesiastical, military and moral laws and institutions 
which bound in society the numberless myriads of human beings, 
who formed for many successive ages, the stupendous monarchies of 
Africa and Asia, should have totally perished and been obliterated 
from the memory of mankind, v;hile the laws of a paltry tribe of 
shepherds, characterized by Tacitus, and b5kthe-SQee¥iiig..i}rfldB}ity 
<l£i^iljbonj..a^ ' the most despisedportion of their slaves," should not 
only have surVifefh:Ke>rfecl^trfal^-t^^ to 

this day, rules of faith and practice to every enlightened nation of 
the world and perishable only with it 1 The reason is obvious. It 
is their intrinsic excellence which has preserved them from the 
destruction which befalls all the works of mortal men, "The 
precepts of the decalogue alone (says Goguet,) disclose more 



APPENDIX. 451 

sublime truths, more maxims essentially suited to form the happi- 
ness of men than all the writings of profane antiquity put to- 
gether can furnish. The more you meditate upon the laws of 
Moses, the more striking and the brighter does their wisdom appear. " 

It would be a laborious but not an unprofitable investigation to 
reduce into a regular classification, like that of the Institutes of 
Justinian, or the Commentaries ff Blackstone, the whole code of 
Moses, which embraces not only all the ordinary subjects of legis- 
lation together with principles of religion and morality, but laws of 
ecclesiastical, civil, and military discipline, regulations of police, 
and even directions concerning the minutest actions and the dress 
of individuals. This however would lead me too far from my 
present purpose, which is merely to consider the Bible as containing 
a system of morality. I shall therefore only notice those parts of 
the Law, which may be particularly referred to that class and at 
present must confine myself to a few remarks upon the Decalogue 
itself, which having been spoken by the voice, and twice written 
upon the stone tables by the finger of God, may be considered as 
the foundation of the whole system. § • 

Of the ten commandments, emphatically sO^^called, for the extra- 
ordinary and miraculous distinction with which they were promul- 
gated, the first four are religious laws. The fifth and tenth are pro- 
perly and peculiarly moral, and the other four are of the crimi- 
nal department of municipal law. The unity of the Godhead, 
the prohibition of making graven images for worship, that of taking 
lightly or " in vain," as the English translation expresses it, the 
name of the Deity, and the injunction to observe the sabbath, as a 
day sanctified and set apart for his worship, were all intended to 
inculcate that reverence for the one only and true God, that pro- 
found and penetrating sentiment of piety, which in a former letter 
I urged as the great and only immovable foundation of all human 
virtue. Next to the duties towards the Creator, that of honoring 
the earthly parents is enjoined. It is to them that every individual 
owes the greatest obligations, and to them that he is consequently 
bound by the first and strongest of earthly ties. The following com- 
mands applying to the relation between man and all his fellow mor- 
tals, are all negative. As their application was universal to every hu- 
man being it was not required that any positive act of beneficence 
towards them should be performed, but only to abstain from wrong- 
ing them, either, — 1. in their persons — 2. in their property — .3. 
in their conjugal rights, and — 4. in their good name. After 
which all the essential enjoyments of life being thus guarded from 
voluntary injury ; the tenth and closing commandnient goes to the 
very source of all human action the heart, and positively forbids all 



452 API^ENDIX. 

those desires, which first prompt and lead to every transgression 
upon the property, and rights of our fellow creatures. 

Vain indeed would be the search among all the writings of pro- 
fane antiquity ; not merely of that remote antiquity, but even in 
the most refined and most philosophical ages of Greece and Rome, 
to find so broad, so complete and so solid a basis for morality, as 
this decalogue lays down. Yet J have said it was imperfect. Its 
sanctions, its rewards, its punishments had reference only to the 
present life. And it had no injunction of positive beneficence to- 
wards our neighbour. Of these the Law was not entirely desti- 
tute in its other parts ; but both, in this respect, and in the other, it 
was to be perfected by him who brought life and immortality to 
light in the gospel. 

Upon which subject you shall hear again from your afiectionate 
Father. 

A. 



LETTER VII. 

TO MR. G. W. ADAMS. 

St. Petersburg, 7 March, 1813. 

Mr DEAR SON, 

/In considering the law of the Hebrews, as delivered by the Creator 
of the world to Moses, with reference only to its moral precepts, 
the character by \^hich it is most strongly distinguished from all 
the other codes of ancient nations, of which we have any know- 
ledge, is its humanity. 

The cardinal virtues of the heathens were, temperance, prudence, 
justice and fortitude — three of which, however excellent, may be 
denominated selfish virtues, since they have a direct reference only 
to the happiness of the individual, and justice is the only measure 
which it requires to be extended to others. None of the lawgivers 
of antiquity had considered the nations for which they formed their 
institutions as a family of brothers; nor do any of them appear to 
have issued any laws founded upon a general principle of benevo- 
lence and good will, independent of that which arose from par- 
ticular relations of kindred, of friendship, or of hospitality. 

In the 22d and 23d chapters of Exodus are the following pre- 
cepts : 

" Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him, for ye 
were strangers in the land of Egypt." 

" Ye shall not afflict any widow oi fatherless child.^^ 



APPENDIX. 453 

" If thou lend money to any of my people that is poor by thee, 
thou shalt not be to him as an usurer." 

"If thou at all take thy neighbour's raiment to pledge, thou 
shalt deliver it unto him by that the sun goeth down." 

" If thou meet thine enemy'' s ox or his ass going astray, thou 
shalt surely bring it back to him again." 

These positive precepts of kindness to the stranger, to the poor, 
to the ividow and orphan, and even to enemies, are many times re- 
peated and enjoined in different passages of the law. And of the 
same description are the following in the 19th chapter of Leviticus : 

" Thou shalt nut curse the deaf, nor put a stumbling-block be- 
fore the blind, but shalt fear thy God." 

" Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart, thou shalt in any 
wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him." 

" Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the 
children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as 
thyself." 

It is said by Plutarch (Langhorne's Plutarch, i. 196) that the 
festival of the Saturnalia, which was a mer^ l^oliday to the slaves 
of Rome, was supposed by some to be a vestige of the equality 
which subsisted in the limes of Saturn, the golden age, when 
there was neither servant nor master, but all were upon the same 
footing, and as it were of one family. Instead of one yearly day 
of licentious sports, the law of the Hebrews ordained that upon 
every fiftieth year the trumpet of the jubilee should sound and 
proclaim liberty throughout all the land, unto all the inhabitants 
thereof. (Leviticus xxv. 9.) Every Hebrew servant was re- 
stored, with all his family, to the full enjoyment of freedom at the 
end of seven years. These were more important vestiges of 
primitive equality and of real consanguinity, than the Roman 
Saturnalia. And they are congenial to the general spirit of the 
Mosaic law. The tendency of all its moral precepts was to gen- 
eralize as much as possible the benevolent sentiment of family 
affection. As they were descended from a family of brothers, it 
is always in the character of a brother, or of a neighbour, that the 
duties of an Israelite to his countrymen was prescribed to him. 

Solon (Langhorne's Plutarch, i. 227) forbade the freedom of his 
city to be granted to any, but such as were forever exiled from 
their own country, or transplanted themselves to Athens with 
their whole family, for the sake of exercising some manual trade ; 
and he prohibited, upon severe penalties, the sale of any thing to 
strangers but oil. 

Lycurgus prohibited strangers from coming to Sparta at all, 
unless they could assign some special reason for it; and he re- 



454 APPENDIX. 

stricted his citizens from travelling to foreign countries. Thu- 
cydides says it was from fear that strangers might imitate his 
constitution and improve in virtue. But Plutarch supposes it was 
rather from a fear that his Spartans by intercourse with other 
nations might be corrupted. (Langhorne's Plutarch, i. 155.) 
Whichever was the real motive, the spirit of the law was the same, 
— jealousy and hatred of strangers. The same spirit, though in a 
milder form, is discernible in the regulations of Solon. Among 
the ancient Greeks and Romans, the sentiment of aversion w^as 
so universal, that the same word signified at once a foreigner 
-.-and an enemy. 

The institutions both of Lycurgus and Solon, were formed with 
the intention of guarding against the evils of individual poverty. 
Solon either cancelled all debts, or reduced the rate of interest 
which had previously been lawful at Athens, and made the mina, 
which had been of seventy-three drachmas, pass for one hundred. 
He also enacted that the person of a debtor should no longer be 
liable to be taken for security. (Langhorne'sPlutarch,i. 216.) All 
these measures, except the last, were unjust and odious, nor can 
the integrity of Solon's character rescue them from that imputa- 
tion. They violated the rights of property, and only relieved one 
class of citizens by oppressing another. 

Lycurgus made a new and equal distribution of lands among all 
the heads of famihes in his republic ; and by various institutions 
endeavoured to abolish all distinction or difference between his 
citizens in regard to the amount of their possessions. He introduced 
a sort of community of goods, of public tables, and even of wives 
and children. He banished all gold and silver, and allowed only 
the use of iron for coin ; and he totally interdicted all commerce. 

The fundamental principle of Solon's system of laws was 
equality. That of Lycurgus was 'patriotism. Their laws were 
adapted to these purposes, no doubt, with great ability; but many 
of them were unjust, unnatural, indecent, and absurd. And 
although Lycurgus, after his new distribution of lands, said 
that '• Laconia looked like an estate newly divided among many 
brothers," (Langhorne's Plutarch, i. 133,) yet neither in his code, 
nor in that of Solon, can be found any thing like a single regula- 
tion which can be traced to a sentiment of fraternal tenderness, 
reconciled with the immutable law of justice. 

The laws of Moses sanctioned no injustice. Their lands, given 
them expressly by God, and acquired by conquest, w^ere distributed 
in just proportions among the twelve tribes. The laws of mar- 
riage, inheritance, and succession were adapted to the purpose of 
keeping the district originally allotted to each tribe always in its 



APPENDIX. 455 

possession, and the year of jubilee twice in every century restored 
all individual estates, which had been alienated during the fifty 
years, to the families which had originally possessed them. No 
debts were cancelled. The person of the debtor was never liable 
to be taken for security. But he could sell his service for seven 
years, and, if he expressly chose it, for life. Interest for the loan 
of money might be taken from a stranger, but not from a poor 
Israelite. x'Vnd it was not lawful to keep his raiment in pledge 
over night. The reason of this last regulation affords a very re- 
markable example of that spirit of tenderness and humanity which 
I have alleged as the peculiar characteristic of the Mosaic law. 
" For that," [his raiment] says God, "is his covering only ; it is 
his raiment for his skin; wherein shall he sleep? And it shall 
come to pass, when he crieth unto me, that I will hear ; for I am 
gracious." (Exodus xxii. 27.) What an appeal to the benevo- 
lent and compassionate affections of the heart is contained in that 
simple question, — luherein shall he sleep ? Nothing like it can be 
found in the laws of Lycurgus or Solon ; and if you wish to see 
the perfect contrast to it, look into the laws of Rome in her high- 
est splendor and glory, when not only the person of the debtor, 
tut even his life, was left at the discretion and mercy of the 
creditor. 

♦' That law of Solon," -says Plutarch, (i. 223) " is justly 
commended, which forbids men to speak ill of the dead. For 
piety requires us to consider the deceased as sacred ; justice calls 
upon us to spare those who are no longer in being, and good 
policy, to prevent the perpetuating of haired. He forbade his 
people also to revile the living in a temple, in a court of justice, 
in the great assembly of the people, or at the public games.". 

All these motives o^ piety, justice, and of good policy ave marked 
with characters far more glowing and of deeper impression, in 
the prohibitions, to curse the deaf, to put a stumbling-block before 
the blind, to vex or afflict the widow and orphan, and to hate or 
bear a grudge against any one ; but, in the positive injunction to 
admonish or rebuke a fellow-citizen to guard him against his own 
sins, to love him as themselves, and to perform ofhces of kindness 
even to personal enemies w^e sec a tenderness to the infirmities 
of human nature, a purity, a sublimity of virtue, which never 
entered, I say not, into the codes of the ancient legislators, but 
into the imaginations of the profoundest and most exalted of their 
philosophers. Noble and elevated as were the moral doctrines of 
Socrates and Plato, the spirit of the Mosaic law, given a thousand 
years before they existed, far transcended them in excellence. 

Observe, also, that, in the Mosaic law, the duties of humanity 



456 APPENDIX. 

are made duties of piety. The violation of any article of a law 
given by God, was obviously an offence against God ; but, inde- 
pendent of this general principle, almost every one of the rules to 
which I have referred are sanctioned by a direct communication of 
God's anger as the penalty for transgression against it. When 
we consider how much more rational was the worship, and how 
much more awful was the fear, of the ineffable Jehovah, than 
could possibly be those of the heathen deities, which were vanity 
and a lie, we must irresistibly conclude that the sanction to the 
moral part of the Jewish law was as much more powerful and 
efficacious than that of any other morality, as the moral itself was 
more calculated lo promote the dignity and happiness of human 
kind. 

In my next letter I shall endeavour to specify the improvement 
upon this law, introduced by the Christian dispensation. 

A. 



LETTER Vin. 

TO MR. G. W. ADAMS. 

St. Petersburg, 21 March, 1813. 



3IY DEAR SON, 



I HAVE promised you, in my former letters, to state the particu- 
lars in which I deemed the Christian dispensation to be an im- 
provement or perfection of the law delivered from Sinai, consid- 
ered as including a system of morality. But before I come to this 
point, it is proper to remark upon the moral character of the books 
of the Old Testament, subsequent to those of Moses. Some of 
these are historical ; some prophetical ; some poetical ; and two 
may be considered as peculiarly of the moral class, one of 
them being an affecting dissertation upon the vanity of human life, 
and the other a collection of moral sentences under the name of 
Proverbs. , 

I have already observed that the great, immovable, and eternal 
foundation of the superiority of scriptural morals to all other mo- 
rality, was the idea of God disclosed in them and only in them. 
The unity of God, his omnipotence^ his righteousness, his mercy ^ 
and the infinity of all his attributes, are marked in every line 
of the Old Testament in characters which nothing less than blind- 
ness can fail to discern, and nothing less than fraud can misrepre- 



APPENDIX. 457 

sent. This conception of God served as a basis for the piely of 
his worshippers, which was of course incomparably more rational 
and more profound than it was possible that piety could be, which 
adored " devils for deities," or even than that piety of philoso- 
phers like Socrates, and Plato, and Cicero, who, with purer and 
more exalted ideas of the Divine Nature than the rabble and the 
poets, still considered the existence of any God at all as a ques- 
tion upon which they could form no decided opinion. You have 
seen that even Cicero believed that the only solid foundation of 
all human virtue was piety ; and it was impossible that a piety so 
far transcending that of all other nations should not contain in its 
consequences a system of moral virtue equally transcendent. 

The first of the ten commandments was that the Jewish people 
should never admit the idea of any other God. The object of the 
second, third, and fourth commandments was merely to impress 
with greater force the obligation of the first, and to obviate the 
tendencies and temptations which might arise to its being neglected 
or disregarded. Throughout the whole law the same injunction 
is continually renewed. All the rites and ceremonies were 
adapted to root it deeper into the heart and soul of the chosen 
people. That the Lord Jehovah was to be forever the sole and 
exclusive object of love, reverence, and adoration, unbounded as 
his own nature, was the principle that pervaded every letter of the 
law, and the whole Bible is but a commentary upon it and corol- 
lary from it. 

The law was given not merely in the form of commandment 
from God, but in that of a covenant, or compact between the Su- 
preme Creator and the Jewish people. It was sanctioned by the 
blessing and the curse pronounced upon Mount Gerizim and Mount 
Ebal in the presence of the whole people, men, women, children, 
and strangers, and by the solemn acceptance of the whole people, 
responding. Amen, to every one of the curses denounced for viola- 
tion on their part, of the covenant. 

From that day until the birth of Christ (a period of about 1500 
years) the historical books of the Old Testament are no more 
than a simple record of the fulfilment of the covenant in all its 
Ijlessings and all its curses, exactly adapted to the fulfilment or 
the transgression of its duties by the people. The nation was 
governed first by Joshua, under the express appointment of God ; 
then by a succession of judges ; and afterwards by a double line 
of kings, until conquered and carried into captivity by the kings of 
Assyria and of Babylon ; seventy years afterwards, restored again 
to their country, their temple and their laws, and again conquered 
by the Romans, and ruled by their tributary kings and by procon- 



458 APPBKDIX. 

suls. Through all these vicissitudes and varieties of fortune, they 
never complied with the duties to which they had bound them- 
selves by the covenant without being loaded with the blessings 
promised on Mount Gerizim, and never departed from them with- 
out being afflicted with some of the curses denounced upon Mount 
Ebal. The prophetical books are themselves historical ; for 
prophecy is, in the strictest sense, no more than history related 
before the event. But the Jewish prophets, of whom there was a 
succession almost constant from the time of Joshua to that of 
Christ, were messengers specially commissioned by God to warn 
the people of their duty, to foretell the punishments which awaited 
their transgressions, andfinally, to keep alive, by unintermitted pre- 
diction, the expectation of the Messiah, the seed of Abraham, in 
whom all the families of the earth should be blessed. 

With this conception of the Divine Nature, so infinitely sur- 
passing that of any other nation ; with this system of moral virtue, 
so indissolubly blended, as by the eternal constitution of things, 
it must be blended with piety ; with this uninterrupted series 
of signs and wonders, prophets and seers, miraculous interpositions 
of the omnipotent Creator, to preserve and vindicate the truth, it 
is lamentable, but to those who know the nature of man, it is not 
surprising to find that the Jewish history is little else than a nar- 
rative of the idolatries and corruptions of the Israelites and of 
their monarchs ; that the very people who had heard the voice 
of God from Mount Sinai should within forty days compel Aaron 
to make a golden calf, and worship that " as the Gods who had 
brought them out of Egy^pt ; " that the very Solomon, the wisest 
of mankind, to whom God had twice revealed himself in visions, 
the sublime dedicator of the temple, the witness in presence of 
the whole people of the fire from heaven which consumed the 
oflferings upon the altar, and of the glory of the Lord that filled 
the house ; that he in his old age, " beguiled by fair idolatresses," 
should have fallen from the worship of the ever blessed Jehovah, 
to that of Ashtoreth,and Milcom, and Chemosh, and Molech, the 
"abominations" of all the petty tribes in the neighbourhood cfJu- 
dea, that Baal, and Dagon, and Miplezeth, and Rimmon, and 
NIsroch, and the sun, moon, planets, and all the host of heaven ; 
that the mountains and the plains, every high place, and every 
grove, should have swarmed with idols to corrupt the hearts and 
debase the souls of a people favored of Heaven so highly, the 
elect of Almighty God, — may be among the mysteries of Divine 
Providence, which it is not given to mortality to explain, but is 
unaccountable only to those who presume to demand why it has 
pleased the Supreme Arbiter of events to create such a being as 
man. 



APPENDIX. 459 

Observe, however, that amidst all the varieties of destiny which 
that nation underwent, amidst the atrocious crimes with which they 
so often polluted themselves, through all their servitudes, their dis- 
memberments, their captivities and their transmigrations, the 
divine light which had been imparted exclusively to them, was 
never extinguished. The law delivered from Sinai was preserved 
in all its purity. The histories, which attested its violations and 
its accomplishments, were recorded and never lost. The writings 
of the prophets, of David and of Solomon, all inspired with the 
same idea of the Godhead, the same intertwinement of religion 
and morality, and the same anticipation of the divine Immanuel, 
the God with us, survived all the changes of government and of 
constitution, which befell the people. The pillar of cloud by day, 
and the pillar of fire by night ; the Law and the Prophets, eternal 
in their nature, went before them unsullied and unimpaired 
through all the ruins of rebellion and revolution, of conquest and 
dispersion, of war, pestilence, and famine. The Assyrian, Baby- 
lonian, and Egyptian empires. Tyre and Sidon, Phcenicia, Car- 
thage, and all the other nations of antiquity, rose and fell in their 
religious institutions at the same time as in their laws and their gov- 
ernments. It was the practice of the Romans, when they besieg- 
ed a city, to invite its gods to come over to them. They consi- 
dered the gods as summer friends, ready to desert their votaries 
in the hour of their calamity, or as traitors, ready to sell them for 
a bribe. They had no higher opinion of their own gods than of 
the stranger deities, whom, as Gibbon said, they were always 
ready to admit to the freedom of the city. All the gods of the 
heathens have perished with their makers ; for where, upon the 
face of the globe, could now be found the human being who be- 
lieves in any one of them ? So much more deep and strong w^as 
the hold vi-hich the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob took 
upon the imagination and reason of mankind, that I might almost 
invert the question, and ask, where is to be found the human 
being believing the existence of any God at all, and not beheving 
in him ? 

'' The moral character of the Old Testament then is, that piety 
to God is the foundation of all virtue, and that virtue is insepara- 
ble from it ; but that piety without the practice of virtue, is itself 
a crime and an aggravation of all iniquity. All the virtues which 
were recognized by the heathens are inculcated, not only with 
more authority but with more energy of argument and more elo- 
quent persuasion, in the Bible, than in all the writings of the ancient 
moralists. In one of the Apocryphal books (Wisdom of Solomon, 
viii. 7,) the cardinal virtues are expressly named : " And if a man 



460 APPENDIX. 

love Righteousness, her labors are virtues : for she teacheth tem- 
perance and prudence, justice 3,nd fortitude ; which are such things 
as men can have nothing more profitable in their life." The 
book of Job, whether to be considered as a history or an alle- 
gorical parable, was written to teach the lessons of patience under 
affliction, of resignation under divine chastisement, of undoubting 
confidence in the justice and goodness of God under every possible 
calamity, and of inflexible adlierence to integrity under every 
temptation or provocation to depart from it. The morality of the 
Apocryphal books is generally the same as that of the inspired 
writers, excepting that in some of them there is more stress laid 
upon the minor objects of the law and the merely formal ordinances 
of police, and less continual recurrence to the weighter matters. 
The book of Ecclesiasticus however contains more wisdom and 
more useful instruction than all the sayings of the seven Grecian 
sages put together. 

It was upon this foundation that the more perfect system of 
Christian morality was to be raised. But I must defer the consid- 
eration of this to my next letter. In the mean time, as I have urged 
that the scriptural idea of God is the foundation of all perfect vir- 
tue, and that it is totally different from the idea of God conceived 
by any other ancient nation, I would recommend it to you, in 
perusing hereafter the Scriptures, to meditate upon the expres- 
sions by which they mark the character of the Deity, and to reflect 
upon the duties to him and to your fellow mortals, which follow 
by inevitable induction from them. That you may have an exact 
idea of the opinions of the ancient heathen philosophers concerning 
God, or rather the gods, study Cicero's Dialogues de Natura De- 
orum, and read the Abbe Olivet's Remarks on the Theology of the 
Grecian Philosophers, annexed to his translation of that work. 
I am your affectionate father. A. 



LETTER IX. 



TO MR. G. W. ADAMS. 

St. Petersburg, 4 April, 1813. 

3«Y DEAR SON, 

The imperfections of the Mosaic institutions, which it was the 
object of Christ's mission upon earth to remove, appear to me to 
have been these. 



APPENDIX. 461 

1. The want of a sufficient sanction. The rewards and the 
penalties of the Levitical law had all reference to the present life. 
There are many passages in the Old Testament which imply a 
state of existence after death, and some which directly assert a 
future state of retribution. But none of these were contained in 
the delivery of the law. At the time of Christ's advent, it was so 
far from being a settled article of the Jewish faith, that it was a 
subject of sharp and bitter controversy between the two principal 
sects of the Pharisees who believed in it, and of the Sadducees 
who denied it. It was the special purpose of Christ's appearance 
upon earth, to bring immortality to light. He substituted the 
rewards and the penalties of a future state in the room of all 
others. The Jewish sanctions were exclusively temporal ; those 
of Christ exclusively spiritual. 

2. The ivant of universality. The Jewish dispensation was 
exclusively confined to one small and obscure nation. The pur- 
poses of the Supreme Creator, in restricting the knowledge of 
himself to one petty herd of Egyptian slaves, are as inaccessible 
to our intelligence, as those of his having concealed from them, as 
well as from all the rest of mankind , the certain knowledge of their 
immortality. The fact is unquestionably so. The mission of 
Christ v/as intended to communicate to the whole human race all 
the permanent advantages of the Mosaic law, superadding to 
them, upon the condition of repentance, the kingdom of heaven; 
the blessings of eternal life. 

3. The com-plexity of the oh jects of legislation. I have remarked 
in a former letter, that the law from Sinai comprised not only all 
the ordinary subjects of regulation for human societies, but those 
which human legislators cannot reach. It was a civil law, a mu- 
nicipal law, an ecclesiastical law, a law of police, and a law of 
morality and religion. It prohibited murder, adultery, theft, and 
perjury ; and it prescribed the number of taches for the curtains of 
the tabernacles, and directed how the snuffers for the holy candle- 
sticks were to be made. It prescribed rules for the thoughts 
as well as for the actions of men. This complexity, however 
practicable and even suitable for one small national society, could 
not have been extended to all the families of the earth. The parts 
of the Jewish law adapted to promote the happiness of mankind, 
under every variety of situation and of government in which they 
can be placed, were all recognized and adopted by Christ, and he 
expressly separated them from all the rest. He disclaimed all 
interference with the ordinary objects of human legislation. He 
declared that his kingdom was not of this world. He acknowl- 
edged the authority of the Jewish magistrates. He paid for his 



462 APPENDIX. 

own person the tribute to the Romans. He refused, in more than 
one instance, to assume the office of a judge in matters of legal 
controversy. He strictly limited the objects of his own precepts 
and authority to religion and morals. He denounced no temporal 
punishments ; he promised no temporal rewards. He took up 
man as a governable being, where the human magistrate is com- 
pelled to leave him, and supplied both precepts of virtue and mo- 
tives for practising it, such as no other moralist or legislator ever 
attempted to introduce. 

4. The hurthensome duties of positive rites, minute formalities, 
and expensive sacrifices. All these had a tendency not only to es- 
tablish and maintain the separation of the Jews from all other 
nations, but in process of time had been mistaken by the scribes 
and pharisees and lawyers, and probably by the great body of the 
people, for the substance of religion. All these were abolished by 
Christ, or, as St. Paul expresses it, were " nailed to his cross." 

You will recollect that I am now speaking of Christianity, not 
as the scheme of redemption to mankind from the consequences of 
original sin, but as a system of morality for regulating the conduct 
of men while on earth. And the most striking and extraordinary 
feature of its character in this respect is its tendency and its ex- 
hortations to absolute perfection. The language of Christ to his 
disciples is explicit: "Be ye therefore perfect even as your 
Father which is in heaven is perfect." And this he enjoins at 
the conclusion of that precept so expressly laid down and so un- 
answerably argued, "to love their enemies, to bless those that 
cursed them, to pray for those that despitefully used and persecu- 
ted them." He seems to consider this temper of benevolence in 
return for injury as constituting of itself a perfection similar to 
that of the Divine nature. It is undoubtedly the greatest conquest 
which the spirit of man can achieve over its own infirmities ; and 
to him who can attain that elevation of virtue which it requires, 
all other victories over the evil passions must be easy. Nor was 
this absolute perfection merely preached by Christ as a doctrine ; 
it was practised by himself throughout his life ; practised to the 
last instant of his agony upon the cross ; practised under circum- 
stances of trial such as no other human being was ever exposed 
to. He proved, by his own example, the possibility of that virtue 
which he taught ; and although possessed of miraculous powers 
sufficient to control all the laws of nature, he expressly and repeat- 
edly declined the use of them to save himself from any part of the 
sufferings which he was to endure. 

The sum of Christian morality, then, consists in fiety to God, 
and benevolence to man. Piety manifested not by formal solemni- 



APPENDIX. 463 

ties and sacrifices of burnt-oflerings, but hy repentance, by obedience^ 
hy submission^ by humilily, by the worship of the heart ; and Benev- 
olence, not founded upon selfish motives, but superior even to the 
sense of wrong or the resentment of injuries. Worldly prudence 
is scarcely noticed among all the instructions of Christ. The 
pursuit of honors and of riches, the objects of ambition and ava- 
rice, are strongly discountenanced in many places : an undue solici- 
tude about the ordinary cares of life is occasionally and forcibly 
reproved. Of worldly prudence there are rules enough in the 
Proverbs of Solomon, and in tiie compilation of the son of Sirach. 
Christ passes no censure upon them. But he left what I have 
called the selfish virtues, where he found them. It was not to 
proclaim common-place morality that he came down from heaven. 
His commands were new ; that his disciples should love one 
another; that they should love even strangers; nay, that they 
should love their enemies. He prescribed barriers against all the 
maleficent passions ; he gave as a law the utmost point of per- 
fection of which human powers are susceptible ; and at the same 
time he allowed degrees of indulgence and relaxation to human 
frailty, proportioned to the powers of every individual. 

An eminent and ingenious writer in support of Christianity, Dr. 
Paley, expresses the opinion that the direct object of the Christian 
revelation was " to supply motives, and not rules; sanctions, and 
not precepts ; " and he strongly intimates that, independent of the 
purposes of Christ's atonement and propitiation for the sins of the 
world, the only object of his mission upon earth was to reveal a 
future state ; to bring life and immortality to light. He does not 
appear to think that Christ promulgated any new principle of 
morality, and he positively asserts "that morality neither in the 
gospel, nor in any other book, can be a subject of discovery ; be- 
cause the qualities of actions depend entirely upon their eflects, 
which effects must all along have been the subject of human expe- 
rience." (Paley's Evidences of Christianity, ii. 25, 26.) 

To this I reply, in the express terms of Christ, (John xiii. 31.) 
/' A new command I give unto you — that ye love one another." 
xVnd I add, that this command explained, illustrated and dilated 
as it was by the whole tenor of his discourses, and especially by 
the parable of the Good Samaritan, appears to me to have been 
not only entirely new, but in the most rigorous sense of the 
word a discovery in morals — and a discovery, the importance of 
which to the happiness of the human species, as far exceeds any 
discovery in the physical laws of nature, as the soul is superior to 
the body. 

If it be objected that the principle of benevolence towards ene- 



464 APPENDIX. 

mies and the forgiveness of injuries, may be found not only in the 
books of the Old Testament, but even in some of the heathen 
writers, and particularly in the discourses of Socrates, I answer, 
that the same may be said of the immortality of the soul, and of 
the rewards and punishments of a future state. The doctrine 
was not more a discovery than the precept. But their connection 
with each other, the authority with which they were taught, and 
the miracles by which they were enforced, belong exclusively to 
the mission of Christ,^ Attend particularly to the miracle recorded 
in the second Chapter of St. Luke, as having taken place at the 
birth of Jesus. When the angel of the Lord said to the shep- 
herds — " Fear not, for behold I bring you good tidings of great 
joy, which shall he to all people. For unto you is born this day 
in the city of David, a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord." In 
these words the character of Jesus as the Redeemer was announ- 
ced. But the historian adds : " And suddenly there was with the 
angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, 
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will towards 
men.'^ Which words, as I understand them, announce the moral 
precept of Benevolence, as explicitly for the object of Christ's 
appearance, as the preceding words had declared the purpose of 
Redemption. 

It is related in the life of the dramatic poet Terence, that when 
one of the personages of his comedy, the Self-Tormentor, the 
first time uttered on the Theatre the line 

" Homo sum, humani nil a me alienum puto," 

an universal shout of applause burst forth from the whole audi- 
ence ; and that in so great a multitude of Romans, and of deputies 
from the nations their subjects and allies, there was not one 
indivi:dual but felt in his heart the power of this noble sentiment. 
Yet how feeble and defective it is, in comparison with the Chris- 
tian command of charity, as unfolded in the discourses of Christ, 
and enlarged upon in the writings of his Apostles ! The heart of 
man will always respond with rapture to this sentiment, when 
there is no selfish or unsocial passion at work to oppose it. But 
the command to lay it down as the great and fun^damental rule of 
conduct for human life, and to subdue and sacrifice all the tyran- 
nical and selfish passions to preserve it, this is the peculiar and 

^ All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables, and without 
a parable spake he not unto them ; That it might be fulfilled which was 
spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables ; I will 
utter tilings which have bee7i kept secret from the foxoiidation of tlie world. 
Matthew xiii. 34, 35. 



APPENDIX. 465 

unfading glory of Christianity. This is the conquest over our- 
selves, which, without the aid of a gracious and merciful God, 
none of us can achieve, and which it was worthy of his special 
interposition, to enable us to accomplish. 

From your affectionate father. a. 



LETTER X. 



TO MR. GEORGE W. ADAMS. 

St. Petersburg, 23 June, 1813. 

MY DEAR SON, 

The whole system of Christian morality appears to have been 
set forth by its Divine Author in the Sermon upon the Mount, 
recorded in the fifth, sixth and seventh chapters of St. Matthew. I 
intend hereafter to make them the subject of remarks, much more at 
large.' For the present I confine myself merely to general views. 
What I would impress upon your mind as infinitely important to 
the happiness and virtue of your life is the general spirit of Chris- 
tianity, and the duties which result from it. 

In my last letter, I showed you from the very words of our 
Saviour, that he commanded his disciples to aim at absolute per- 
fection, and that this perfection consisted in self-subjugation and 
.brotherly love ; in the complete conquest of our own passions, 
and in the practice of benevolence to our fellow-creatures, includ- 
ing among them our most inveterate enemies. 

Among the Grecian systems of moral philosophy, that ot the 
Stoics resembled the Christian doctrine in this particular, of re- 
quiring the total subjugation of the passions, and this part of the 
Stoic principles was adopted by the Academics. You will find the 
question discussed with all the eloquence and ingenuity of Cicero, 
in the fourth of his Tusculan disputations, which I advise you to 
read and to meditate upon. You will there find proved as fully as 
human reason can prove, the duty of totally subduing the passions. 

It is sometimes objected that this theory is not adapted to the 
infirmities of human nature, — that it is not made for a beinff so 
constituted as man — that an earthen vessel is not formed to dash 
itself against a rock — that in yielding to the impulse of the pas- 
sions, man only follows the dictates of his nature, and that to 
subdue them entirely is an effort beyond his powers. 

30 



466 APPENDIX. 

The weakness and frailty of man it is not possible to deny ; it 
is too strongly attested by all human experience, as well as by 
the whole tenor of the Scriptures ; but the degree of weakness 
must be limited by the efforts to overcome it, and not by indul- 
gence to it. Once admit weakness as an argument to forbear 
exertion, and it results in absolute impotence. It is also very 
inconclusive reasoning to infer that because perfection is not abso- 
lutely to be obtained, it is therefore not to be sought. Human 
excellence consists in the approximation to perfection ; and the 
only means of approaching to any term, is by endeavouring to 
attain the term itself. 

With these convictions upon the mind ; with a sincere and 
honest effort to practise upon them, and with the aid of a divine 
blessing which js promised to it, the approaches to perfection 
may at least be so great as nearly to answer all the ends which 
absolute perfection iiself could attain. All exertion therefore is 
virtue, and if the tree is to be judged by its fruits, it is certain that 
all the most virtuous characters of heathen antiquity were the 
disciples of this Stoic doctrine. 

Let it even be admitted that a perfect command over the pas- 
sions is unattainable to human infirmity, and it will yet be true 
that the degree of moral excellence possessed by every individual 
is in exact proportion to the degree of control which he exercises 
over himself. According to the Stoics, all vice was resolvable 
into folly ; according to Christian principles, it is all the effect of 
weakness. 

' In order to preserve the dominion of our own passions, it behoves 
us to be constantly and strictly upon our guard against the influ- 
ence and the infection of the passions of others. This caution is 
above all necessary in youth, and I deem it the more indispensable 
to enjoin it upon you, because as kindness and benevolence comprise 
the whole system of Christian duties, there may be and often is 
great danger of falling into error and vice, merely by the want of 
energy to resist the example or the enticement of others. ) On this 
point the true character of Christian morality appears to me to 
have been misunderstood by some of its ablest and warmest defend- 
ers. In Paley's View of the Evidences of Christianity there is a 
chapter upon the morality of the Gospel, the general tenor of 
which, as of the whole work, is excellent, but in which there is the 
following passage : 

" The truth is there are two opposite descriptions of character 
under which mankind may generally be classed. The one pos- 
sesses vigour, firmness, resolution, is daring and active, quick in its 
sensibilities, jealous of its fame, eager in its attachments, inflexible 
in its purpose, violent in its resentments. The other, meek, yield- 



APPENDIX. 467 

ing-, complying^, forgiving; not prompt to act, but willing to suffer ; 
silent, and gentle, under rudeness and insult ; suing for reconcilia- 
tion, where others would demand satisfaction, giving way to the 
pushes of impudence, conceding and indulgent to the prejudices, 
the wrong-headedness, the intractability of those with whom it 
has to deal. 

" The former of these characters is and ever hath been the favorite 
of the world. It is the character of great men. There is a dignity 
in it which universally commands respect. 

*' The latter is poor-spirited, tame, and abject. Yet so it hath 
happened, that with the Founder of Christianity, this latter is the 
subject of his commendation, his precepts, his example ; and that 
the former is so in no part of its composition." 

Dr. Paley is, in this place, adopting the opinions of Soame 
Jenyns, whose essay upon the internal evidence of Christianity 
he very strongly commends. But I cannot consider this as an 
accurate and discerning delineation of character, or as exhibiting a 
correct representation of Christian principles. 

The Founder of Christianity did indeed pronounce distinct and 
positive blessings upon the poor in spirit, (which is by no means 
synonymous with the poor-spirited) and upon the meek. But in 
what part of the Gospel did Dr. Paley find him countenancing by 
commendation, precept, or example, the tame and abject 1 The 
character which Christ assumed upon earth was that of a Lord and 
Master. It was in this character that his disciples received and 
acknowledged him. The obedience that he required was unbound- 
ed — infinitely beyond that which ever was claimed by the most 
absolute earthly sovereign over his subjects. Never for one in- 
stant did he recede from this authoritative station. He preserved 
it in washing the feet of his disciples. He preserved it in his 
answer to the High Priest before whom he was brought for trial. 
He preserved it in his answer to the ofiicerwho struck him for this 
very deportment to the High Priest. He preserved it in the very 
agony of his ejaculation upon the cross, '* Father, forgive them 
for they know not ivhat they do.^^ He expressly declared himself 
to be the Prince of this world, and the Son of God. He spoke as 
one having authority, not only to his disciples, but to his mother, 
to his judges, to Pilate the Roman governor, to John the Baptist, 
his precursor, and there is in the four Gospels not one act, not one 
word recorded of him excepting in his communion with God, that 
was not a direct or implied assertion of authority. He said to his 
disciples (Matthew xi. 29,) " learn of me, for I am meek and lowly m 
heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls." But where did he 
ever say to them, " learn of me, for I am tame and abject ? " There 



468 APPENDIX. 

is certainly nothing more strongly marked in the precept and ex- 
ample of Christ than the principle of stubborn and inflexible resist- 
ance against the impulses of others to evil. He taught his dis- 
ciples to renounce every thing that is counted enjoyment upon 
earth, to take up their cross and suffer ill-treatment, persecution 
and death for his sake. What else is the book of Acts of the 
Apostles than a record of the faithfulness with which those chosen 
ministers of the Gospel, carried these injunctions into execution. 
In the conduct and speeches of Stephen, of Peter and John, or 
of Paul is there any thing that could justly be called tame or abject 1 
Is there any thing in them indicating a resemblance to the second 
class of characters into which Dr. Paley divides all mankind? If 
there is a character upon historical record, distinguished by a hold, 
intrepid, tenacious and inflexible spirit, it is that of St. Paul. It 
was to such characters only, that the commission of teaching all 
nations could be committed with the certainly of success. Observe 
the expressions of Christ in his charge to Peter — (Matt.'xvi. 18.) 
•' And I say also unto thee, that thou art Peter, (a roclc)- and upon 
this Rock 1 will build my Church, and the gates of Hell shall not 
prevail against it." Dr. Paley's Christian is one of those drivellers 
who, to use a vulgar adage, can never say " Ao," to any body. 
The true Christian is the "justum et ienacem propositi virum" of 
Horace. The combination of these qualities so essential to the 
heroic character, with those of meekness, lowliness of heart, and 
brotherly love, is what constitutes that moral perfection of which 
Christ gave an example in his own life, and to which he command- 
ed his disciples to aspire. 

Endeavour, my dear son, to discipline your own heart and to 
govern your conduct through life by these principles, thus combined. 
Be meek, be gentle, be kindly affectioned to all mankind, not ex- 
cepting even your enemies. But never be tame or abject — never 
give way to the pushes of impudence, or shew yourself yielding or 
complying to prejudices, wrong-headedness or intractability which 
would lead or draw you astray from the dictates of your conscience, 
and your own sense of right. ' ' 'Till you die, let not your integrity 
depart from you." Build your house upon the Rock, — and then 
let the rain descend, and the floods come, and the winds blow, and 
beat upon that house. It shall not fall ; for it will be founded upon 
a Rock. So promises your blessed Lord and Master, and so 
prays your affectionate father. 



APPENDIX. 469 



LETTER XL 

TO MR. G. W. ADAMS. 

St. Petersburg, 14 September, 1813. 

MY DEAR SON, 

The fourth and last point of view in which I proposed to offer you 
some general observations upon the Sacred Scriptures, was with 
reference to literature. ( And the first remark which presents itself 
here is, that the five books of Moses are the most ancient monument 
of written language, now extant in the world. The book of Job 
is nearly of the same date, and by many of the Christian and Jew- 
ish commentators is believed to have been written by Moses. -' 

The employment of alphabetical characters to represent all the 
articulation? of the human voice, is the greatest invention that 
ever was compassed by human genius. Plato says that it was the 
discovery either of a god, or of a man divinely inspired. The 
Egyptians ascribed it to Thot, whom the Greeks afterwards wor- 
shipped under the name of Hermes. This, however, is a fabulous 
origin. That it was an Egyptian invention there is little reason 
to doubt, and it was a part of that learning of the Egyptians, in 
all of which we know that Moses was versed. 

It is probable that when Moses wrote, this art was, if not abso- 
lutely of recent, yet of no very remote invention. There was but 
one copy of the law written in a book ; it was deposited in the ark 
of the covenant, and was read aloud once in seven years to all the 
people at their general assembly in the feast of tabernacles. 
(Deut. xxxi. 9, 10, 25, 26.) There was one other copy, written 
upon stones, erected on Mount Ebal. (Deut. xxvii. 3-8.) It does 
not appear that there existed any other copies. In process of 
time, the usage of reading it every seven years must have been 
dropped, and the monument upon Mount Ebal must have perished. 
For in the reign of Josiah (2 Kings xxii.) about eight hundred 
years afterwards, the book of the law was found in the temple. 
How long it had been lost is not expressly told ; but, from the 
astonishment and consternation of Josiah upon hearing the book 
read, its contents must have been long forgotten, so that scarcely 
a tradition of them remained. We are, indeed, told (1 Kings viii. 
9, and 2 Chron. v. 10) that when the ark of the covenant was de- 
posited in the temple of Solomon, "there was nothing in the ark 
save the two tables which Moses put therein at Horeb." The 



470 APPENDIX. 

two tables contained not the whole law, but only the ten com- 
mandments. (Deut. V. 22 ; X. 4, 5.) The book of the law was 
therefore no longer in the ark at the dedication of Solomon's 
temple, that is, about five hundred years after the law was given, 
and three hundred years before the book was found by Hilkiah, 
the high priest in the eighteenth year of Josiah. 

From these circumstances, as well as from the expedients used 
by Moses and Joshua, for preserving the memorial of the law, and 
the repeated covenants between God and the people, (Deut. v. 2 ; 
X. 1 ; xxix, 5 ; Joshua xxiv. 25) it is obvious that the art and the 
practice of writing were extremely rare ; that very few of the 
people were ever taught to read ; that there were few books extant, 
and of those few only single copies. 

The arts of writing, speaking, and thinking, with their several 
modifications of grammar, rhetoric, and logic, were never cultivated 
among the Hebrews, as they were, though not until nearly a thou- 
sand years later than Moses, among the Greeks. Philosophical re- 
search and the spirit of analysis appears to have belonged, among 
the ancient nations, exclusively to the Greeks. They studied lan- 
guage as a science, and from the discoveries they made in this pur- 
suit resulted a system of literary composition founded upon logical 
deductions. The language of the sacred writers was not constructed 
upon the foundation of abstruse science. It partakes of the nature 
of all primitive language, which is almost entirely figurative, and 
in some degree of the character of primitive writing and of hiero- 
glyphics. We are not told from what materials Moses compiled 
the book of Genesis, which contains the history of the creation, and 
of three thousand years succeeding it, and which terminates three 
generations prior to the birth of Moses himself ; whether he had 
it altogether from tradition, or whether he collected it from more 
ancient written or painted memorials. The account of the creation, 
of the fall, and all the antediluvian part of the history, carries 
strong internal evidence of having been copied, or, if I may so 
express myself, translated from hieroglyphical or symbolical 
records. The narrative is of the most perfect simplicity. The 
discourses of the persons introduced are given as if taken down 
verbatim from their mouths, and the narrative is scarcely any thing 
more than the connecting link of the discourses. The genealogies 
are given with great precision, and this is one of the most remark- 
able peculiarities of the Old Testament. The rest is all figurative. 
The rib, the garden, the trees of life and of the knowledge of good 
and evil, the apple, the serpent, are all images which seem to 
indicate a hieroglyphical origin. 

All the historical books, both of the Old and New Testament, 



APPENDIX. 471 

retain the peculiar characteristics that I have noticed, the sim- 
plicity and beauty of the narrative, the practice of repeating all 
discourse, as in the identical words spoken, and the constant use 
of fig-urative, symbolical, and allegorical languaoe. But of the 
rules of composition prescribed by the Grecian schools, the imities 
of Aristotle, or the congruities of figures taught by the Greek 
philologists, not a feature is to be seen. /"The Psalms are a col- 
lection of songs. The Song of Solomon is a pastoral poem ; 
the Proverbs are a collection of moral sentences and maxims, 
apparently addressed by Solomon to his son, with the addi- 
tion of some others of the same description. The prophetical 
books are partly historical, and partly poetical. /They contain the 
narrative of the visions, and other revelations of the Deity to the 
prophets who recorded them. I In the New Testament the four 
Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles are historical. - They con- 
tain memoirs of the life of Christ, and some of his discourses, and 
the proceedings of his principal apostles for some years immedi- 
ately after his decease. The simplicity of the narrative is the 
same as that of the Old Testament. The style in general indi- 
cates an age when reading and writing had become more common, 
and books more multiplied. ,; The Epistles of St. Paul are the pro- 
ductions of a mind educated to the learning of the age, and well 
versed even in the Grecian literature. From his history it ap- 
pears that he was not only capable of maintaining an argument 
with the doctors of the Jewish law, but of discussing principles 
with the Stoic and Epicurean philosophers. | His speech at Athens, 
as a specimen of eloquence, was worthy of an audience in the 
native country of Demosthenes. The Apocalypse of St. John 
resembles in many respects some of the prophetical books of the 
Old Testament. The figurative, symbolical, and allegorical lan- 
guage of these books, show a range of imagination suitable only 
to be the record of dreams and visions. Their meaning is in many 
parts inexplicably obscure. It has been, and is to this day, among 
the follies and vices of many sects of Christians to attempt ex- 
planations of them adapted to sectarian purposes and opinions. 
The style of none of the books, either of the Old or New Testa- 
ment, affords a general model for imitation to a writer of the 
present age. The principles and rules of composition derived 
from ihe Greek and Roman schools, and the examples of their prin- 
cipal writers, have been so generally adopted in modern literature, 
that the style of the Scriptures, differing so essentially from them, 
could not be imitated without great affectation. ,'But for pathos of 
narrative, for the selection of incidents, that go directly to the 
heart, for the picturesque of character and manners, the selection of 



472 APPENDIX. 

circumstances that mark the individuality of persons ; for copious- 
ness, grandeur, and subhmity of imagery ; for unanswerable 
cogency and closeness of reasoning, and for irresistible force of 
persuasion, no book in the world deserves to be so unceasingly 
studied, and so profoundly meditated upon, as the Bible. / 

I shall conclude here the series of letters which I purposed 
about two years since to write you, for the purpose of exhorting you 
to search the Scriptures, and of pointing out to your consideration 
the general points of application with a view to which I thought 
this study might be made profitable to the improvement and use- 
fulness of your future life. There are other and particular points 
to which I may hereafter occasionally invite your attention. I am 
sensible how feeble and superficial what I have written has been, 
and every letter has convinced me inore and more of my incompe- 
tency to the adequate performance of the task I had assumed. But 
my great object was to show you the importance of devoting your 
own faculties to this pursuit. To read the Bible is of itself a 
laudable occupation, and can scarcely fail of being a useful em- 
ployment of time. But the habit of reflecting upon what you 
have read is equally essential as that of reading itself, to give it 
all the efficacy of which it is susceptible. 

I therefore now recommend it to you to set apart a small por- 
tion of every day to read one or more chapters of the Bible, and 
always to read it with reference to some particular train of observa- 
tion or of reflection. In these letters 1 have suggested to you four 
general ones ; considering the Scriptures as divine revelations, as 
historical records, as a system of morals, and as literary composi- 
tions; but there are many other points of view in which they may 
be subjects of useful investigation. As an expedient for fixing 
your own attention, make it also a practice for some time to min- 
ute down in writing your reflections upon what you read from day 
to day. You may perhaps at first find this irksome, and your 
reflections themselves scanty and unimportant ; but they will soon 
become both easy and copious. And be careful, above all, not to 
let your reading make you either a pedant or a bigot. Let it 
never puff you up with a conceited opinion of your own knowledge, 
or make you intolerant of the opinions which others draw from the 
same source, however different from your own. And may the 
merciful Creator, who gave the Scriptures for our instruction, 
bless your study of them, and make them to you " fruitful of good 
works." 

From your affectionate father, 

Am 



JAN 281949 



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